Alien: Not Alone
by eap404
Summary: Ellen Ripley and the Nostromo crew are awakened to search for a distress signal on a seemingly abandoned planetoid. Little does she and her counterparts know however, it will lead to a terrifying discovery, one that'll lead her down a path of destiny, horror or even love. Discover the truth of the Nostromo's fate, and what happened all those years ago.
1. Prologue

Hello Everyone, it's been awhile, so I'd thought I'd reward you with a nice little present for the holidays, the prologue to Alien: Not Alone. Enjoy, big shoutout to AlphaLima1980 for beta reading, and big shoutout to all who like, follow and review.

Happy Holidays :)

Alien (1979) is owned by Disney/20th Century Fox.

The OCs are owned by me.

**Alien: Not Alone**

**Prologue**

In a world similar to ours, in the future the problems of old become the problems of new.

Corruption, Greed, Lust for Power.

These human traits still exist, as the future isn't as utopian as scholars of the past would have thought.

With the development of FLT drives in early 21st century Humanity had begun to conquer the stars, establishing space stations and refineries on all planets and moons in our solar system. Corporations had begun to "privatize" space, making adventure all about dollars and cents.

One of such companies was Weyland Yutani. It was formed as a result of a joint merger or rather an "hostile takeover" of Yutani Corps by the Weyland Corporation in 2099.

Simply known as "The Company" it had grown amongst the stars almost like a plague, becoming the dominant force in the corporate galaxy; they hired many kinds of ships for a myriad of jobs, from towing freight, retrofitting space stations, scientific expeditions, and perhaps the most important colonizing new worlds.

One such ship was docked just outside of Panama, a Lockmart CM-88B Bison _M_-Class star freighter named the USCCS _Nostromo_, used for towing cargo to and from worlds precisely designed for refining.

She had been retrofitted for such a task several years earlier by adding a towing clamp in the upper hull. Currently, she had a crew of seven.

Firstly there was Captain Arthur K. Dallas, an experienced Shipmaster who had served on several ships before he became captain of the _Nostromo_. He was a veteran of both the menial everyday issues one would encounter on a ship like his, as well as the bigger situations that required making the right decisions at the right time. Dallas has been captain of his own ship before: the _Tremolino_, a smuggling ship and before that, the UAS _Archangel_, a carrier destroyed on Thedus during a peacekeeping mission. He was respected by his crew, and in return he allowed a fairly relax atmosphere on the ship.

His executive officer was a man by the name of Thomas G.W. Kane, he was slightly younger than Dallas, but had almost the same amount of experience with spacecraft, he had served on medical ships and other towing vessels, before ending up on the _Nostromo_. As a result of a few stints with alcoholism and drug abuse, he was often passed over for promotion to captain, Kane also lacked the drive and determination that Dallas seemed to have, he was a good XO, and that was good enough for him.

The third on the line was the ship's Warrant Officer , a woman by the name of Ellen L. Ripley, young but capable, at the age of 28 she had used her determination to rise the ranks of the ICC, the Interstellar Commerce Commission. Ripley was determined to some and a bitch to others, as due to her height she tended to inadvertently look down on several of her crew members, mainly a pair of engineers she seemed to always butt heads with. Ripley was probably on her way to becoming a Captain or Executive Officer for she had a long career of hard work, paperwork and perhaps even adventure on her way.

With an age of 46, Science Officer Chandler R. Helwig was the crew's eldest member, he had been with the company since interning back in his college days, he was intelligent, but also still had a good personality. The crew often forgot he represented the Science Division of the Company.

Navigation Officer Joan M. Lambert, the second woman on the ship and the latest arrival, Lambert was quiet, naïve and had trouble fitting in at first, keeping silent, keeping to herself during meals and other social interactions on the ship. Ironically, she also seemed to be the most flirtatious of the crew at least for now anyway. Lambert was not only flirtatious, she tended to marry her coworkers, at least two of them, both captains from ships she'd served, divorced when she was transferred. She was an excellent navigator, having studied the field in college but her sudden nervous demeanor would often inadvertently opt her out of certain duties aboard the ship.

Chief Engineer Dennis M. Parker was either a "SLIMBALL" or an "OK GUY", it really depended on who you asked. Parker was also military and had a number of jobs before he was captured in the Torin civil war, he escaped by building an EEV from scratch. He was very opinionated often complaining about pay or an unfair work load. To make up for these qualities, Parker was a talented engineer, though it would take him a long period of time at points, he had kept the _Nostromo_ running smoothly.

Engineer Technician Samuel E. Brett was a career engineer and he knew it, quiet and reserved with a dry and often satirical sense of humor. He had been on several ships with Parker prior to the Nostromo, the pair were inseparable, this fact was reinforced by the trait of Brett's where he would say "right" after almost every statement Parker would make, much to the chagrin of his crewmates.

Also on board was a Ginger American Shorthaired Tomcat kitten by the name of Jones or Jonesy as Ripley often called him, recently adopted while back planet side by Ripley in order to officially hunt for rodents on the ship, but unofficially to keep the crew company on longer journeys, he was a welcomed addition, though he needed to be house or rather "ship broken".

With the increase in towing duties for much of their freight fleet, Weyland-Yutani had also introduced a new crew member position, Chief Tactical Officer. Their job was simple make sure the check cleared, the cargo was safe, the towing secure, and that most importantly the delivery occurred successfully.

However, instead of hiring people off the streets they decided to simply promote former chief engineers to the position as they would have to have some experience with the inner workings of ships to understand how much they could tow or carry, as well as communicating to the other members of the crew on whether the ship would be running "heavy" or "lite".

Andrew N. Mils, a tall man at 6'2, with groomed brown hair, piercing gray eyes, and a skinny yet toned body, was walking through the dark and damp docks of Panama trying to find the ship. Recently promoted and transferred to the _Nostromo_ to take over as the new CTO. He had been with the company since his days in high-school, said decision caused him and his then girlfriend to break up, he had been married to the job ever since, now at just over thirty was ready for this new opportunity in his life, one that hopefully would lead to make a career in the commercial fleet, he had been an engineer his whole life, able to fix anything from a lawn mower to the massive ships used by the military during the expansionist wars.

His boots made a heavy stomping sound as he marches towards the direction the dock master had said the _Nostromo_ was harbored, when he finally gazed his eyes upon the massive craft, a whistle escaped his lips.

"Well… Hello, beauty" he said striding with his duffel bag hanging from his shoulder. He arrived at the main airlock, pressing the call button next to the exterior airlock. After a few moments, a voice crackled through the audio speaker, he was XO Kane.

"Yes?" he asked through the intercom.

"Um...hello sir...my name is Andrew Mils? I'm your newest crew member." Mils responded

"Didn't think we were getting a new man for some time. Hold on a bloody minute" Kane retorted, his English accent showcasing itself. After what feels like an eternity Kane returned.

"Alright, Come in. We'll meet you in the mess hall, just keep walking straight once you through the airlock... oh and by the way... you'll have to get cleaned before you step in... You know the rules after all..." Kane finished and the line goes dead.

"Yep... great... same shit different ship" Mils muttered as he stepped into the airlock.

…

(Several minutes earlier aboard the _Nostromo_)

"I tell ya man...we aren't on Earth for more than a few days... and they're shipping us off again..." Parker states already rambling on about the current lack of rest the crew was suffering from, as he and Brett were playing a friendly game of poker in one of the secluded seating areas in the main lounge space.

"Right..." Brett responded, without stop looking at his hand while placing a set of blue chips on the table.

"See that's what I like about you Brett, you and I think the same... Now, if we can just get Ripley to agree on the whole bonus situation..."

"I wouldn't even try it... You'd have a better chance balling her than getting her to go to bat against the company..." Brett responded shifting his hand around his cards.

Elsewhere in the ship's med bay, Helwig and Ripley were giving the six-month-old kitten a checkup.

"Alright little one... just a little pinch" Helwig said, giving the small cat a shot, causing it to snort.

"Shh...it's okay, no more pain, you're all set Jonesy!" Ripley says picking the kitten up, holding it close to her.

"Welp, that's the last shot and all his tests came back looking very impressive... Not bad for a kitten that was on the streets not that long ago." Helwig said, looking at his screens and charts nearby.

"Yeah we'll keep feeding him mice, cat food and milk on a daily basis so I'd say he'll be just fine, won't you?" Ripley pointed out to Jones, with various meows coming from the small cat. "Do you think he's alright for Cryo?" Ripley asked him.

"Yes... I think so, in fact I don't see any problem with him sleeping with you..."

"Well good, 'cause he's the only "man" who I'd ever let sleep with me right now."

"That reminds me Ripley... How's your daughter?" Helwig asked, grabbing his cup of coffee. Ripley took a moment to answer.

"She's... fine, I have some friends to look after her... When I'm not there which is, very often ... I left when she was five and then when I came back she was eight, after what feels like a few weeks" Ellen says a little upset at missing out on her daughter's life as it were.

"I'm sorry dear. I didn't mean to upset you." Helwig begins to explain but is cut off by Ripley.

"It's alright; we're due for some vacation time anyway." Ripley says, looking down at Jones.

On the bridge Dallas and Lambert were dealing with coordinating their next destination which luckily was a short trip to Pluto, which had regained its planet status is the late 2000s.

"Alright looks like just under a..." Lambert paused while writing down her calculations "12 days to get to Pluto, with another six to get to the off loader near Luna...so unless my calculations aren't correct, based on speed and fuel consumption... 23 day trip and we'll be dozing most of that time."

"Alright...just make sure we're all squared away on our cryo time, I don't want MUTHUR waking us up half way through our round trip... Welp I'm going to get a drink, see where everyone's at... Update MUTHUR on our course too I guess..." Dallas says getting up from his sitting position; taking note of Kane who was currently leafing through a magazine while smoking a cigarette.

"Kane? Any sign of our new guy?" Dallas asks, causing Lambert to immediately become interested.

"New Guy?" Lambert asked but was ignored by Dallas who was still waiting on Kane's answer which came after a puff is taken from his cigarette.

"No... Nothing... Administration said he'd be here within the next few days... But..." Kane began, but was cut off by the outer airlock caller buzzing, which caused Lambert a startle, Kane attended the call.

"Yes?" he says as there was a brief silence at the other end, with their new crew member responding eventually.

"Um...hello sir...my name is Andrew Mils? I'm your newest crew member." he said.

"Didn't think we were getting a new man for some time... hold on a bloody minute" Kane retorts as he turns towards Dallas, who was looking at a terminal, whose screen displayed Mils' profile.

"Yep that's our man... Let him in." Dallas ordered

"Alright, Come in. We'll meet you in the mess hall, just keep walking straight once you through the airlock... oh and by the way... you'll have to get cleaned before you step in... You know the rules after all..." Kane finished and the line goes dead.

"Alright let's go meet our newest addition... C'mon Lambert. Kane get Helwig and Ripley to the Mess hall" Dallas orders ordered as he and Lambert left the bridge, Kane contacted the medical area.

In the medical area, Jones was startled when the intercom crackled with static, he jumped out of Ripley's arms and scatters out the open door.

"Oh God... Jones! Jonesy!" She yelled chasing after her feline friend, with Helwig answering the call.

"Yes? What is it?" he asked

"Helwig? Our new crew member's arrived… Dallas wants everyone in the Mess Hall." Kane informed

"Copy that, I'm on my way... I think Ripley will be late" he finishes as he left his scientific abode.

…

Mils stepped into the airlock, waiting for the decontamination cycle to begin. Even though they were on Earth, the amount of super bacteria in the planet's atmosphere, with many an outbreak occurring through the past few decades. To eliminate any chance of it breaking out on a spacefaring craft or worse making it to another planet was vital confusing. Even on a controlled climate like that of a ship's, harmful bacteria could sneak and thrive inside vital systems as de-humidifiers, contaminating the ship's water and food sources. This happened on the _MSV Wellsing_, a merchant ship infected with a highly resistant pneumonia, killing several of the crew and forcing the survivors to utilize the self-destruct sequence.

After a few moments of being sprayed by an antiseptic mist, he waited for the inner doors to open up, when this happened and he stepped out into the sterile space of the ship, however he is not greeted by his new Captain, but rather a...kitten?

Mils didn't really have a lot of experience with cats, but he knew one thing, kittens tend to be curious.

"I suppose you're not Captain Dallas. Are ya little guy?" Mils asks getting down on one knee to try to get eye to eye with the feline. He only meowed, and rolled on his back. Mils cautiously rubs the animal's belly as it pours lightly.

Mils didn't know what to make of the creature's presence however, he had never come across one on the other ships he'd been on, he felt it was best for him, the ship and the kitten if he brought it with him to the Mess Hall. He swiftly and gently picked up his new friend with one hand, and his baggage with the other.

"Alright my friend, here we go. Now, where is the –?" Mils asked out loud looking around for any sign of the crew, his vocalized thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a woman's voice.

"Jones! Jonesy! Where are you, you little wanderer..." the voice yells from around the corner, Mils turned around, as the kitten now identified as Jones looks expectantly as well. A few moments later a young woman with curly long brown hair, arrives from around the corner, looking around the general area before making eye-contact with Mils and Jones.

Ellen Ripley was a woman of judging character, she tended to distrust people right away, this coming from her relationship with her ex, her daughter Amanda's father being fairly ugly to say the least, plus the person she was currently married to wasn't exactly Prince Charming. When she first entered the airlock she was looking for Jones, now she had found him being held by someone she didn't know.

Mils himself was perplexed by the woman's presence before him, she was... for a lack of a better term... beautiful, but in a natural sort of way, of course Mils had been taught by his parents that looks weren't always everything. She was fairly tall for a woman, even though the average height of human beings had been on the rise in recent history, it was still surprising. Her lanky build also helped this image.

There was an awkward tension between the two, one that soon was broken when both muttered a statement.

"Hello..."

"Hello Ma'am…"

"Oh sorry..."

"No my bad, I shot first... are you Captain Dallas?" Mils asked as she approached him cautiously.

"Oh no...I'm Ripley...I'm the ship's warrant officer" She answered.

"Well, I'd shake your hand, but he's currently using it as a cushion…" Mils said, pointing to Jones who was licking his thumb.

"Oh Jones! There you are, little shit... ran away from me after his checkup..." Ripley scolded the cat while taking it from Mils' arm, and then she asked "I'm sorry I didn't get your name"

"It's Mils...Andrew Mils, I'm actually your new CTO." Mils said trailing off.

"Oh gosh that's right, the new position. I should've known... I take it you need help getting used to the ship." Ripley stated.

"Um… Yeah. Actually, I was told to come to the mess hall... Unfortunately, I don't know where that is..." Mils responded honestly.

"Oh um... It's straight ahead, I guess they are there now. Follow me... watch your –" Ripley says as she starts to lead Mils down the tight hallways, unfortunately he hits his head lightly on the doorframe.

"Ouch..." he cursed "Sorry I'm not used to M-classes." Mils admit, following Ripley towards the Mess Hall.

…

Brett and Parker were, now in the middle of a heated discussion over what breakfast bread tastes better as they sat at the mess hall main area.

"Look, Parker. If you ask me it's simple... biscuits are better with jam alright? Cornbread just crumbles in your hand; I mean it's a disaster if you get them wet..."

"Naw Brett baby! Listen, listen. A little butter, a little coffee and it's..." Parker goes to retort, but is cut off by Hedwig's arrival.

"If you really want to know, Mr. Parker. I think that Mr. Brett does have a point, Biscuits are nice and sweet when made properly... and they also go great with coffee..." he says pouring himself another cup of the steaming beverage.

"Shit! You always get on his side." Parker argued, placing a stick of chewing gum in his mouth.

"Right" Brett added pleased, as Lambert, Kane and Dallas arrived.

"What's happening baby?" Parker said humorously, Dallas just smirked as he grabbed a can of Aspen beer from the cooler nearby, he just stood there as Lambert and Kane help themselves to some coffee.

"Well... I'm going to wait for Ripley and hopefully our new guy didn't get lost." Dallas trailed off opening his beer.

"I could go find him" Lambert playfully suggested.

"If he can't find his way through an _M_-Class then we're already in trouble." Kane added

"Oh great, a new Boss" Brett points out to Parker rolling his eyes.

"Um... I'd like to point out that... adding another hand on this ship is gonna cause a little more money to be taken out of everyone's paycheck." Parker stated

"Right"

"Mr. Parker... if you read up on the new contracts, you'll realize that with this new added position of a Chief Tactical Officer, everyone's pay was increased by 16 percent." Helwig pointed out, taking a triumphant sip of his coffee as he sat down.

"Yeah, but that means we get 8 percent." Brett mutters under his breath, as Ripley is heard talking nearby, Parker 's grumbles cooled down after hearing his boss' voice. Finally, Ripley walked inside the Mess Hall with Jones in her arms, behind her, Mils followed her. His attractive features did not go unnoticed by Lambert.

Mils nodded to Captain Dallas, who introduced the new crewmember.

"Everyone, this is Andrew Mils, he's our Chief Tactical Officer. He's gonna handle our towing duties, signing off on all our payloads, and making sure we all get our shares in the end" Dallas announced as Mils smiled politely. Dallas then presented him the rest of the team.

"This is Helwig; he's our Science Officer, Lambert our Navigations officer." Dallas said as Helwig lifted his coffee cup up with a nod, with Lambert batting her eyes, trying to test Mils' waters.

"You've already met Kane, he's my XO." Dallas continued as Kane shook Mils' hand.

"So to speak... had a feeling you'd be tall." Kane stated with a smile.

"I guess you've also met Ripley, she's Warrant officer." Ripley smiles as she pours Jones some milk.

"She'll put you to work, that's for sure." Parker points out with a cocky laugh.

"Right" Brett seconded.

"Last, but not least this is Chief Engineer Parker and Engineer Brett...they'll do a good job if you twist the knife a little." Dallas said with a smirk.

"That would make you Captain Dallas then" Mils guessed, as him and Dallas shook hands.

"It does…. Welcome aboard the _Nostromo_ Mils."

"Glad to be here, I'm new to this whole Officer thing, but I'll do my best. I can promise you that" Mils said as he sat down with his fellow crewmates for their first meal together.

…

It has been a smooth year for the crew of the _Nostromo_, their new crewmember had fit in well both, doing his job and fraternizing with the crew.

With Captain Dallas got along fairly well, they communicated effectively since they had often the same goal in mind: "Make sure the money was safe". He enjoyed the change of pace a little better than he originally had thought, Mils was respectful and got the job done, though he knew when to joke and when to act serious.

Mils and Kane often joked around occasionally, but more or less kept to their work, as after all Kane was his boss, and tended to be annoyed more easily than Dallas sometimes, though they did both enjoy watching the telecom reports of local football matches.

With Lambert he tended to avoid her as much as possible and keep himself to his work. This wasn't out of spite but was most certainly out of the fact that Lambert flirted with him on a daily basis. At first it was legitimate, Lambert honestly wanting to have a go at what Mils had to offer, though he defended himself well citing a bogus regulation, or simply saying he wasn't interested. Even after the legitimacy had worn off, she tried to perk his interest occasionally.

Though they rarely dealt with each other directly, except when Mils injured himself which tended to happen on a fairly regular basis considering Mils had yet to adjust to the tight spaces of the _Nostromo_, he and Helwig got along fine.

He, Parker and Brett had formed an interesting comradery, with Mils being a former engineer they tended to work well with each other, Mils acting as the buffer between the engineers and Dallas or in most cases Ripley.

Ripley and Mils however had got closer, they tended to work together a lot seeing as how they were near the bottom of the "Officer Tree" so to speak. Their personalities were fairly similar, Ripley tended to be calm or even a little nervous around people. Mils was reserved and respectful, with a dry and unique sense of humor used to cool any tense situation and make everyone feel a little at ease.

Ripley wouldn't admit, but she felt more comfortable while Mils was around, and a lot more relaxed. He wasn't just a crewmember; he was a friend. He had even come up with a nickname for her "Rip", which in his mind "saved time".

….

Meals were often the only time the crew could truly unwind as a group, all of them discussing various issues, such as the daily routine of working on an _M_-Class, or how terrible the food was, with the coffee being the only good thing on the ship, which was a blessing as they practically ran on it 24/7.

Shortly after they had shipped off for another long haul, a letter was waiting for Mils near his locker. The letter was from Weyland-Yutani, which made Mils himself raise an eyebrow.

His thoughts were interrupted by Lambert who was notifying him that dinner was ready.

"Mils? Dinner in five? Same stuff as last time" She said standing in the doorway, she doesn't leave however when Mils doesn't respond right away.

"Foreclosure?" she said almost joking.

"No...um no I don't know what it is, was here waiting for me. Come on let's get some chow." Mils said taking the letter with him, as he followed Lambert towards the Mess Hall.

The meal was taken with the greatest possible pleasure, considering the rather tasteless ingredients, and everyone enjoyed the boring flavors.

"This crap gets worse and worse every time" Kane said as he coughs a few bites down of what's supposed to be pasta.

"It ain't all that bad, I mean it's better than British food that I know" Parker said laughing with Brett adding a smirk of his own.

"Right"

"Remind me when we get back to show you what our food is all about " Kane replies.

"Helwig toss me one of those new beers, it's gotta be better than the old flavor... what was it again?" Dallas asked

"I believe Captain it was Cranberry" Helwig said handing Dallas a can of the brew.

"Oh, that just doesn't sound good at all..." Lambert says holding her stomach as she dashes out her cigarette into a nearby ashtray.

"It can't be that bad, probably good for you, which of course means you won't have any right?" Ripley points out as she scratches Jones' head, looking over to Mils on her right who was taking a bite of his artificial salad.

"I'm eating my greens now, aren't I, although these aren't really greens... more like plastic" Mils said looking down at his food.

"Finally! someone said it" Parker approved, clapping hands

"Right"

"Alright, I believe this food has closer consistency to paper than plastics" Helwig disagreed

"Oh God there goes my appetite thanks a lot." Lambert said

"You're welcome" Helwig replied with humor, as Mils decided to open up the letter, Ripley took notice of the piece of paper her friend was holding.

"Top secret?" she asked guarding her lips with her coffee cup.

"Doubt it, probably a bill for the new uniform I ordered" Mils said with a shrug and a smirk. Ripley returned the smirk and paid attention to the conversation of the group.

"Where we off to again?" Kane asks Dallas, who closed his eyes and tried to think. Mils kept reading the letter, his expression changed.

"Jesus!" he exclaimed under his breath.

"Place called... um... Grenara... It's a mining colony near Titan II. Jungle planet last I heard, bringing back um... what are we bringing back again Mils?" Dallas asked turning towards his Chief Tactical Officer, whose eyes are stuck on the paper in front of him, not replying to his Captain.

"Mils?" Dallas said again, his voice raising a little, everyone took notice of Mils' silence, Ripley and Lambert exchange worried glances as Ripley placed a cautious hand on his shoulder which was tense to her touch.

"Mils!" she said making him to put the letter down and look around at everyone, slightly embarrassed.

"Sorry...we're picking up an Iron refinery in the atmosphere." Mils stated

"Right iron, so it should be a lighter load... maybe 10 thousand?" Dallas theorizes with Mils nodding.

"Yeah...about that much." Mils says putting the letter in his back pocket, Ripley takes notice of her friend's reaction to the letter.

….

Grenara had been a quick job, with the ship arriving ahead of schedule the crew had some time to take it easy. Mils and Ripley had the whole ship to themselves with the others grabbing supplies.

Ripley sitting at one of the corner tables playing solitaire with a deck of cards lying around, Mils approaches from nearby.

"Welp, we're all set for our next hall, cargo's safe. So, there's that." He said holding a small clipboard in one hand and a beer the other.

"Mmm... That should make everyone happy. Well mostly everyone." Ripley responded as Mils sat down next to her.

"Yeah, Parker and Brett are gonna be a pain in the ass as usual with the bonus situation. " Mils took a sip of his concoction.

"At least we're going to get some rest." She added, not taking her hand off the cards in front of her.

"True. looking forward to getting some real shut-eye, not that Cryo thing" Mils states signing the documents, Ripley smiled as she taps off the burnt ash on her cigarette.

"Mils? What do you plan on doing when we get back to Earth?" Ripley asked suddenly.

"I don't know, got some business to take care of in the States... but besides that I'm gonna get some good food." Mils responded after a few moments of speculation.

"Anyone waiting for you back home? I forget did you say you have anyone at home?" she asked innocently.

"Well... no, not really... I had a girlfriend back in high school... she wasn't really a fan of me being an engineer... said we started dating for my braun not for my brains" Mils said with a halfhearted smile, ending the relationship with his girlfriend still hurt a little.

"Heh... must've broken her heart."

"Sure. What about you Rip?"

"Well, My daughter's father and I aren't exactly on speaking terms. He left shortly after she was born..." She paused, remembering something "and my current husband isn't going to be in the picture much longer." Ripley admits looking down at her hands which are wrapped around her coffee cup.

"Damn, sorry Rip. I didn't mean to bring up bad memories or anything"

"Don't worry about it, I'm leaving him with a clear conscience, it's what's best for me and Amanda. That's all that matters"

"Is that your daughter's name?"

"Yes. Amanda Tei Ripley, she's turning nine here soon. Hopefully we'll be back before then"

"Do you have a picture?" Mils asked politely, he didn't want to pry too much as even though they were close, they still had only known each other for a year.

"Oh yes... I think I have one here!" She said pulling out her wallet and handing her crew mate the photo she kept of her young daughter, she had straight hair as opposed to Ripley's curly, but she definitely had Ripley's determined brown eyed gaze.

"She's cute Rip." Mils said handing the picture back home.

"She takes after me thank God." Ellen exclaimed; part relieved "She'll probably be my height as well; sure, she'll make whoever she dates pretty nervous"

"Yeah..."

"What about you, you ever think of settling down and have kids?" Ripley asked

"Well, I don't know about the settling down part, I'm on a ship, a family… Kind of. As for kids well, I've technically got that covered..." Mils, hesitated and then he reached into his back pocket, he pulled out the letter he had read over dinner a few weeks earlier.

"I received this in the mail, it's a Weyland Yutani notice".

"I was wondering what that was? It seemed to have your attention..."

"As you remember, contract requires a mandatory sample of "genetic material"

"For detecting any genetic anomaly or disease, so what?"

"Well when I was being interviewed, they offered an insurance policy of sorts. The way it works is that you donate a sample of... uhm"

"Mils I'm not a school-girl you can say the word"

"Sperm...to be frozen, that way if anything happens your future will be secured"

"Sounds like something they would say"

"Yeah, well somehow my ex... she got ahold of one of the samples, turns out she falsified information to try and have her as my primary beneficiary, which means she could get access to those samples... and that's not the best part, she impregnated herself via in vitro... and now I have a son. The letter is to notify me that with him being over 10 years old he can become a beneficiary" Mils explained leaving Ellen speechless for a few seconds, Mils had come to grips with the whole idea, but it was still another headache he wasn't planning on having to deal with.

"Wow...Mils I don't really know what to say, I supposed Congratulations is what people say in these cases"

"Yeah... his name is David Andrew McLaren. She named him after the warrior king himself and she used my name. If we weren't estranged it would be nicer."

"How old is he?"

"He just turned eleven"

"Jesus!"

"Yeah, shit happens right?" Mils says taking a sip of his beer.

"What are you gonna do?"

"Once we're back planet side, I'm gonna put something aside for him."

"Aren't you going to see him?" Ripley asks still a little numb from the conversation.

"Not now, it wouldn't be fair, maybe when he's older. the least I can do is get his mother off my policy... and maybe put him on it"

"Yeah, that's what I plan on doing with my soon to be ex-husband."

"Guess that explains why you don't have a ring on."

"Yeah, well hopefully you can get this mess sorted out. He's lucky to have you as a father."

"Ah no... You're the parent of the year here, doing all this work, dealing with Brett and Parker all the time, a weaker woman would've quit but you're far from weak Ripley." Mils acknowledged her.

"Thanks... to the future?" Ripley says holding up her coffee cup in a mock toast, Mils responded by raising his beer can.

"The future!" Mils says as him and Ripley clinging their respective drinks together, the future would be good for them.

….

Following Grenara the group had a return trip to Earth followed by a few roundtrips to Luna and then to Pluto. Four months had passed since then, with the _Nostromo_ resting in one of the docks over Pluto. Their delivery had been ironized Hydrogen 33, a new chemical element need for hull plating processes.

Inside the docks there were offices belonging to different companies. Weyland-Yutani being one of them.

Mils was currently sitting in one of the offices in front a Weyland-Yutani representative.

"Do you understand the only way this can be changed is via a court order, right?"

"Yes... I got your letter, now I'm here. This needs to be done."

"Very well, this document states that as of today 11/22/2121 you, Andrew N. Mils rename and reassign your primary benefactor as David A. Mils. The benefactor is currently 11 years old, and will remain primary benefactor for the remaining contracted lifespan of yourself, is that clear?"

"Yes, Crystal clear." Mils responded, signing the paper giving his son all benefits effective immediately.

Meanwhile, in a nearby legal office Ripley has finished divorcing her husband Paul Carter and gaining sole custody of her child Amanda. The woman from the legal team looked up at Ripley from her papers.

"Okay, Miss Ripley, the divorce is finalized and confirmed as of today. However, you will need to change who you want the child's legal guardian to be, should anything happen to you, God forbid of course."

"Of course."

"Do you have anyone in mind? Friends? relatives?"

"Um...well" Ripley says pondering the question, she really hadn't thought through all the candidates, she knew a few friends, but legal guardian was something else, it meant legal protector as well, someone she could trust, she only really could consider one name.

"Yes. I do, Andrew Mils, he's a coworker... and a friend" Ripley says suddenly.

"Very good if you could just fill out this information please" the legal rep said handing Ripley the paper which for all intents and purposes allowed Mils to become a subjugate father should anything happen to her.

….

On the _Nostromo_'s bridge, Dallas, Kane, Ripley and Mils were going over the latest assignment as Lambert plotted a new course.

"Alright, by the looks of it... we have one more hall before we can take a vacation of sorts... thanks to the productive year we've had, looks like we'll get a month." Dallas said as Kane lighted up a cigarette.

"'You mean the trip or the vacation?" Kane asked through his cigarette, Mils chuckles at the question.

"You'll figure it out." Dallas stated.

"Well, I'm guessing the trip to and from's gonna involve some sleeping… probably." Ripley said, walking over to Lambert's position.

"What's this place called again?" Mils asked

"Thedus…. we're picking up refined ore." Kane responded.

"Thedus, a planet in Epsilon Reticuli, roughly 59 light years out"

"How long a trip?" Ripley asks looking over Lambert's shoulder.

"I was just working that out now." She typed on the computer "by the looks of it, based on fuel, trajectory and cargo. It's gonna take around 4 months to get there and a return of 6 to 8 months based on weight." Lambert said with everyone grunting responses of displeasure.

"We'll get there for St. Patrick's Day and come back home for Thanksgiving." Mils reluctantly stated, Dallas pressed a few switches to open up communications with Parker and Brett back down in their "hiding spot".

"Parker?" Dallas states after a few moments of silence Parker returns the call.

"Yeah..."

"Prep for exit...we're leaving in five hours..."

"Yeah... Dallas? When we get back, we NEED to talk about all the work Brett and I have been doing, extra hours and all that." Parker let out the same usual rant.

"Right..." Brett added, as usual.

"Yeah yeah" Dallas says switching off communications.

"They're becoming restless to say the least." Kane told him

"Always the bonus situation..." Dallas says scratching his head.

"Right" Mils says mimicking Brett's catchphrase, Helwig walked in at that moment.

"Dallas, can I speak to you? It's important." He said seriously.

"Ahh what now?" Dallas says starting to get slightly annoyed.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news... I'm being transferred to Thedus' medical station, effective immediately." Helwig says holding up a piece of paper, Dallas' eyebrows raise immediately, along with his crewmates looking at each other in surprise.

"Now? Why couldn't they wait till we get back home?" Dallas asked looking at the piece of paper, sighing even more as he sees that it regards the sudden transfer as legitimate.

"Typical corporate schedule if you ask me." Kane murmured under his breath as he takes a sip of coffee.

"I'm sorry. I really am, it's out of my hands. I'll see everyone off before I leave" Helwig said, nodding to everyone.

"Well... Helwig I hate to lose ya, hopefully your replacement is at least half the man you are." Dallas said, shaking Helwig's hand.

"Thank you, Dallas. I suppose it's time to go, though I would rather stay." Helwig told him as he quietly smiled looking at the crew, before he left the bridge.

"It's gonna take a while for us to get used to the new guy." Mils states looking at the space Helwig once occupied.

"What's his name?" Lambert asks.

"Um... Ash." Dallas read the paper Helwig had just given him.

"Just Ash?" Ripley asked.

"Just Ash."

"Great. One of those cases, all mysterious and corporate, like a Rockstar…. could be the next Devo II." Mil says rubbing the back of his neck.

Shortly afterwards, the Nostromo Left Earth, for what would be the last time, making its FTL jump towards Thedus, with the crew getting into their cryochambers. Once they arrived, they received their delivery 20 million tons of refined ore contained with four large refineries. Helwig was rotated out, with Ash replacing him. Ash seemed to be around Helwig's age, but with a lot less personality with his gray hair neatly kept short, their trip back to Earth was set, the report was transmitted, the crew had returned to the their chambers for the long sleep, and the Nostromo was heading home.

Little did the crew know however, their sleep would be interrupted, by a message from an alien world, with the destiny of the ship and its crew becoming unclear for future generations.

So as per tradition, I'd like to name the actor who would play Mils. Well it would be the legend himself Sam Elliott, why Sam Elliott? It's because by the time Alien came out, he wasn't a household name yet, and Alien could be his launching pad so to speak. He also wouldn't have a mustache as young as he was at the time.

For Helwig maybe a Robert Duvall.

Anyway once again big thanks to AlphaLima1980 & DarthTenebrus for beta-reading, and fine tuning the fic.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Holidays, and God Bless :)

Stay tuned for more!


	2. Chapter 1: Early Wake Up Call

Alien (1979) is owned by Disney/20th Century Fox.

Novelization owned by Alan Dean Foster and Titan Books.

Original characters are owned by me.

Beta'd by AlphaLima1980

Gamma'd by DarthTenebrus

**Alien: Not Alone**

**Chapter 1: Early Wake Up Call**

Commercial Towing Vessel 'The _Nostromo_'

Crew: Eight

Cargo: Refinery Processing 20,000,000 Tons of Mineral Ore

Course: Returning to Earth

It begins with the ship - the ship and the silence.

The USCSS _Nostromo_ towed four massive towers of ore refineries behind it, its journey slowed by the metallic pillars. Inside the ship the corridors were dark and devoid of life. The mess hall lacked any form of activity opposed to a pair of drinking birds dipping up and down in perfect unison. The bridge felt abandoned with the crew in their cryochambers, and a chair turned by itself knocking into the dashboard of a nearby console.

On its own the Comms terminal located on the bridge flickered to life, the emergency helmets reflecting the images on screen. After few moments, as the complexity and content of the data fluttered and flashed down the screen, a loud buzzing sound activated from the bridge, and the ship lit up, coming to life piece by piece. On a blue background, a series of ones and zeroes scrolled down followed by a buzzing sound as the main computer analyzed the data. As though on cue, the ship came back to life, lighting up corridors and heating cold rooms.

The last room to be lit up was the one housing the eight cryochambers, which began their wake-up protocol, their glass dome-like lids beginning to rise slowly. After a minute the occupants of the pods began to stir, Kane being the first one to rise from his slumber, his eyes kept closed as his body moved in an almost robotic state as he slowly gained his senses back after the long sleep. He slowly opened his eyes as he took a few breaths, a familiar feeling beginning to set in - for those who were used to hyper-sleep it was like getting up from an all-night bender first thing, a mixture of a hangover and head cold.

Kane slowly shifted himself over to where he was sitting on the edge of his bed, as he referred to it, grabbing the small robe crumbled up at his feet on the floor. He put on the robe and slowly walked towards the Mess hall, leaving his cohorts to their own duties of waking up.

Ash shot up next quickly moving to grab his jumpsuit from a nearby locker, as Dallas moved with a few coughs as he sat up.

"Alright, come on, everyone up... Parker, Brett? Rise and shine, Lambert," Dallas said, grabbing a shirt and pants from his locker.

"Oh Jesus Cap... too early!" Parker groans rising up from his chamber.

"Right"

"Brett, please don't start!" Lambert stated, holding her head and grabbing her robe next to her chamber, heading quickly for the nearest shower.

Ripley rose with a silent curse, ignoring Jones who was also shaking the sleep off as it were. Mils just kept staring up at the ceiling, trying to slowly acclimate to his surroundings.

"Mils? You awake?" Ripley asked as she took a robe as well.

"Depends...we home yet?" the man said, yawning.

"Don't think we'd be up otherwise."

"You dressed yet?"

"Technically."

"You know my rule" By his "rule", Mils meant he didn't feel it polite to be in the same room as a female crew member when she wasn't fully clothed to some compacity, his modest habit which Lambert and Ripley felt was odd. Cryo required people to strip down completely nude or at least in underwear to avoid freezer burns. Crewmembers would get accustomed to seeing their coworkers naked.

"Yes, come on out..." Ripley stated as her friend sat up with a grunt, keeping his eyes closed; when he opened them, he looked at Ripley smirking down at him from her standing position.

"How's my hair look?" he said, smiling back at her.

"Great." she said as she combed his hair with both hands but only succeeded in making it messier.

"Oh jeez. Alright I'm up...I'm up Rip!" he responded, and she stopped, walking away. Mils immediately noticed Jones sitting still in Ripley's chamber.

"Well now, that wasn't nice... leaving you all alone. Come on Jonesy! Let's get some chow," Mils said, grabbing the cat.

Kane had entered the Mess Hall, turned on one of the video monitors above the table, and approached the "kitchen" compartments - at the press of a button, the pre-portioned food was revealed to him, a cup of coffee beans, which he took and poured into the coffee machine mounted into the wall. He also blew off some dust on a nearby bowl, just as Ash entered into the Mess Hall.

"Kane." He said coldly.

"Ash..." He said back. Without turning around, Ash took several containers of milk and cream from the nearby cooler, just as Dallas entered the room.

"Morning, Captain." Kane said, turning around with a smile.

"How's the coffee?" Dallas asked as he picked up a can of soda.

"Oh, it's brewing." Kane said before he poured some prefiltered water into the reservoir and placed the pot under the machine.

Parker made his entrance fully dressed, drawing a cursory glance from the others in the room.

"Parker... if we have Parker that means Brett can't be far behind." Kane muttered just loud enough to hear when Brett came in almost like a prophecy. His eyes were still on Brett when Ripley followed him in, still in her robe. "Ripley... oh and Ripley, don't forget about the cat this time."

Ripley stopped in her tracks at Kane's statement, and she quickly turned around and marched back towards the cryochambers, causing the others to laugh lightly at her hurried plight.

"Man, she treats that cat better than she treats us." Parker pointed out.

"Well Jones doesn't pester her as much as you do, Parker," Dallas pointed out, pouring cereal in a bowl.

"Right" Brett finished off, much to Parker's chagrin.

Ripley almost ran into Lambert who was coming out of the shower room with a towel around her head, and an instant's footwork and dodging was all that Ripley could do to avoid colliding with the navigator.

"Oh Jesus, Ripley! Just because your taller than everyone doesn't mean you can run me over too!" Lambert said as she laid the towel around her shoulders.

"Sorry, Lambert. I was looking for Jones, have you seen him?"

"He's probably near your locker. That's where you keep those treats he likes, remember?" Lambert said, walking away.

Ripley continued to march towards the locker rooms, when suddenly the doors opened, and she practically collided with Mils, who was now fully-dressed.

"Oh, sorry Mils... I… didn't mean to - " She said looking up at him, mirroring the time when they first met. Her heartbeat increased just a little bit due to his proximity.

"Don't worry. Figured you forgot something or someone," Mils said, looking down at Jones.

"Yeah... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to forget ya! I'm sorry." Ripley said picking up Jonesy as she and Mils walked back to the Mess Hall, where everyone was now seated around the table.

"Ahh the newlyweds," Kane said with a smirk as the pair grabbed their food and sat down. Mils scratched Jones' back as he meowed loudly, just as Ripley placed a bowl of milk in front of the cat, while handing Mils a full cup of coffee.

"Thanks. Oh God, I needed that." Mils smiled as he sipped the coffee.

"I'm telling you, this food is terrible man," Parker said laughing, as Ripley groaned while she poured coffee in her mug, that coffee being the only good thing on board most times.

"Hey Kane, who won the Cup?" Mils asked from across the table.

"I'm afraid it looks like Arsenal... again" Kane responded, looking up at the viewscreen with Ash behind him.

"Damn." He cursed, taking a spoonful of what was supposed to be cereal.

"What'd ya say? Got any biscuits over there?" Parker asked Ripley.

"Here's some cornbread." Ripley said as she tossed a bag of the stale like bread towards Parker who caught it happily.

"How ya feeling Lambert?" Mils asked looking to his right at the young navigator.

"I am cold!" she whined.

"Still with us Brett?" Parker asked turned right and asked his partner, eating in silence.

"Right." Brett replied with a wink.

"I feel dead," Kane muttered.

"Anyone ever tell you, you look dead?" Parker quipped, looking at his crewmate, with several members of the crew laughing at the statement.

Brett looked at Parker and mouthed something towards him, in the shape of "Bonus..."

"Yeah right, I just forgot something, man. Before we dock, I think we ought to discuss the bonus situation. Brett and I, we think we deserve full shares... right baby?" Parker said swapping the floor over to his partner.

Mils buried his head in his hands. "Not more of this shit," he murmured, while next to him Ripley laughed with an all-knowing smile.

"You see, Mr. Parker and I feel the bonus situation has never been on an equitable level." Brett stated, explaining the current pay problem, which had been brought up every chance the pair had gotten.

"Well, you get what you're contracted for, like everybody else." Dallas pointed out.

"Yes, but everybody else, uh, gets more than us." Brett retorted with a small smile.

"Cause you guys aren't officers," Mils added.

"Dallas, MUTHUR wants to talk to you," Ash announced, interrupting the banter as a beeping sound was heard.

"Yeah. I saw it; yellow light's for my eyes only." Dallas took notice of the flashing light, grabbed his jacket and got up from the table.

"Alright. Everyone get dressed, Parker? Eh!" Dallas ordered around as everyone began to get up.

"Cap? Can I finish my coffee?" Parker begged.

"Right," Dallas conceded, ignoring him and focusing on Mils. "Mils, double-check our load?"

"Got it. Need a refill before - I'll just take the pot..." Mils said pouring more coffee into his cup.

"Thank ya!" Parker replied, raising his mug in salute. "It's the only thing good on this ship."

"More coffee on the way," Ripley announced as she prepared another pot, as she and Lambert go off to get dressed.

….

Dallas walked into the bridge, casually strolling towards the MUTHUR interaction console of the ship. Every ship of _Nostromo_'s size and class was outfitted with their own AI mainframe, tasked with helping the crew with the more rudimentary duties, as well as monitoring them on behalf of Weyland-Yutani. Dallas pressed a button and walked through the now open doorway, to his left he used a keypad on the wall to retrieve a keycard, and then placing it casually into a slot, the computer read the card's info and after confirming Dallas' identity, it opened the door into the MUTHUR interface, a spherical room filled with flashing white led lights all over the walls and a chair with a terminal and keyboard attached to it. Dallas sat and the chair turned until it was facing the terminal and the far side of the room.

With a flip of a switch MUTHUR started up, several prompts and commands displaying themselves on the screen in bright monochrome green letters over a black background. Dallas keyed in a command, and the AI interpreted it to auto select a category.

**INTERFACE 2037 READY FOR INQUIRY**

"Good Morning, MUTHUR" Dallas said as he took a sip of his coffee, he then types a simple question.

**WHAT'S THE STORY MOTHER?**

….

On the bridge, the ship's officers set to work in the final preparation of what their return trip to Earth would consist of. Ripley put on her headset as Kane slid forward in his chair with Lambert next to him.

"Right?" Ripley said flipping a switch.

"Ok...Plug us in." Kane said and with a flick of a switch the remainder of the bridge came to life.

"Bingo." Mils said as he took a seat next to Ripley, displaying up the cargo information on his console.

"Thank you." Ash said politely turning a few knobs and switches at his station's terminal.

Lambert noticed something upon seeing the star charts in front of her face, particularly the absence of humanity's Homeworld.

"Where's Earth?" She asked in confusion, turning towards her crewmates and raising her eyebrows.

"You are the navigator, you should know," Kane rebuked her.

"It's not our system," Ripley noticed, looking over from her station.

Mils noticed something else on his screen that made him uneasy. "What the hell... 22?" he exclaimed, taking a few notes on a piece of scrap paper nearby.

"Scan," Kane ordered as Lambert complied.

"I can't believe this," she said sighing, as the ship's exterior sensors swept the vacuum of space.

"Contact traffic control," Kane ordered Ripley, his eyes glued to the screen in front of him as she keyed in the relevant hailing frequency.

"This is commercial towing vehicle _Nostromo_, out of the Solomons, registration number 1-8-0-NINER-2-4-6-0-NINER, calling Antarctica traffic control. Do you read me? Over." After a pause, she repeated, "Commercial towing vehicle Nostromo, out of the Solomons, registration number 1-8-0-NINER-2-4-6-0-NINER." With no return signal, the message's radio waves faded into the silence of space.

"We got dead air, that's not a good sign," Mils said as he scanned every frequency used by the ICC.

"Nothing..." Ripley admitted.

"Keep trying." Kane insisted.

Ripley kept hailing. "Calling Antarctica traffic control. Do you read me, Antarctica? Over."

Lambert finished her scans and discovered the truth about their location.

"I've found it - we're just short of Zeta II Reticuli. We haven't reached the outer rim yet." She announced suspiciously.

"That's hard to believe." Kane said, skeptical about the fact.

"What the hell are we doing out here?" Lambert wondered, addressing no one in particular.

"Did MUTHUR made a mistake?" Mils asked, looking over to Ripley, who shook her head.

"Unlikely," Ash intervened.

"Don't know... what the hell are you talking about?" Kane asked pondering the situation.

"That's not our system..." Ripley replied in a singsong voice.

"I know that!" Lambert replied in equal fashion, mimicking Ripley's tone.

"I got bad feeling about this one...we get woken up way ahead of schedule..." Mils groused.

"It's not totally crazy, maybe something wrong with the load?" Kane said looking at Mils.

"Nope... load's fine, but we–" Mils started to explain before he was interrupted by Dallas.

"Kane?" Dallas voice barked on the intercom.

"Yes Captain?" Kane answered.

"Gather everyone up. Meeting in the mess hall in five," Dallas stated.

"Roger. See you there."

"Great, now we get to find out what's really going on..." Lambert said, hopping up, Kane and Ash following her.

"Kane... can I talk to you a second?" Mils stopped the XO before he left the bridge.

"After the meeting, Mils...I've got a headache already..." Kane said rubbing his head, coughing with a cigarette in his mouth, then walked out, leaving Ripley and Mils on the bridge.

"Guess our questions will soon be answered, come on." Ripley pointed out as she started to leave, only to find her path blocked by Mils.

"Rip...erm, can I talk to you about something a second?"

"Well...Mils you've blocked the door with your arm, so... I think I'm gonna have to listen," Ripley replied sarcastically as Mils retracted his arm from the doorway, taking a moment to adjust himself as he noticed the tight space between the two.

"Right... erm, we've got a problem with our load."

"What kind of problem?" she queried.

"Well, our max load we can carry is 20 million tons or 40 billion pounds, so to speak. The term is short tons - 1 short ton equaling 2000 pounds?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know the conversion factor. And 20 million, I remember that, it's what we were contracted for. Granted, it's our largest load in quite some time," Ripley agreed.

Andrew narrowed his eyes. "That's not it, we are technically towing 22 million tons..." He paused to give Ripley a moment to do the math, and when she didn't respond he concluded, "We're running heavy."

"Running heavy," Ripley remembered, meant they were overloaded and spending more reaction mass than expected, reducing speed and increasing travel time. In maritime ships, load factor equaled percentage of cargo or passengers carried. For example, 4000 tons carried on a vessel with 10,000 short ton capacity had a load factor of forty percent. _Nostromo_ was ten percent over limit, according to Mils, giving them a load factor of negative ten percent.

"Well shit. How does that happen, Mister Chief Tactical Officer?" Ripley responded placing her hands on her hips.

"Well, several things can be the reason - mismanagement, misinformation, or the company just wants us to go slower for some reason?" Mils numbered using his fingers.

"That's something to bring up at the meeting, then," Ripley stated as she headed down the hallway.

"Yeah. Guess so," Mils said as he followed Ripley.

"One question - why did you tell me first?" she asked as he caught up with her.

He shrugged. "Figured a slap from you would be better than a punch from Kane or Dallas," Mils said winking, making Ripley's heart skip a little.

…..

_USCSS Nostromo__ Audio Log, Captain Arthur Dallas, Commanding._

_"We got an unexpected wake-up call. Yellow light. I spoke to MUTHUR and she's picked up a distress call — a repeating acoustical beacon from a nearby planetoid. Doesn't sound like any radio signal I've heard... As the suits listening know, company rules say we check it out. Now I've got to go tell the crew, they already know something's up. Dallas out."_

…..

In the bowels of the darkened engine room hallways, Parker and Brett walked through the metallic chasms as they moaned about the state of labor in the world of engineering.

"Listen, do you ever notice that they never come down here?" Parker groused as he marched along with his friend.

"Mils does, sometimes." Brett points out.

"Yeah... Mils is different. He's a former engineer... turned into one of _them_," Parker responded.

"Right."

"I mean, this is where the work is right?" Parker began again as the pair began to turn a corner.

"Well it's the same damn reason we get a half share to their one. Our time is their time - that's the way they see it," Brett explained.

"Yeah, but -"

"Same old shit, man," Brett retorted, cutting Parker off.

"Yeah, but I think know why they don't come down here - it's because of you. You don't have any personality - Lambert wouldn't even ball you!" Parker said laughing suddenly.

"Way I see it, you've got a better chance at Ripley going after you than Lambert for me." Brett responded as they climbed up the access ladder to get to the upper "inhabited" level.

….

Ripley and Mils arrived in the mess hall and found Lambert sitting on the table talking to Kane, who had Ash next to him. Ripley took a seat on Lambert's right with Mils hovering over Kane's shoulder, holding his head at the sudden headache he now suffered from, presumably from the cryo-sleep.

"You guys took a while." Lambert said out loud, winking at Mils and arching her back with her hands behind her, ostensibly stretching.

"Yeah...had a payload issue" Mils said smirking.

"Is that innuendo?" she asked suspiciously, smirking back.

"No!" Ripley stated lightly hitting Lambert on the arm, causing the young officer to unlink her fingers and turn her attention to her fellow female crewmember.

"So why are you guys late?" Lambert insisted, looking sideways over to Mils, who was discussing the payload issue with Kane.

"So, we're running heavy?" Kane asked.

"Yeah," Mils replied glumly. "Load Factor of -10%, about 2 million tons… lot of bucks taken out of our payment."

"Not if _I've_ got anything to say about it." Kane replied angrily.

"Kane? Did you say Arsenal won the Cup?" Mils suddenly remembered, changing the subject.

"Lead in points and outscored Hamburg in the European semis 4-2," he answered with a smug grin of victory plastered to his face.

"This means they went up against... Nice FC," he nodded in eventual understanding.

"Damn Frenchies didn't stand a chance." Kane finished with a laugh.

"Neither did my bet. Guess I owe ya… what? 2 rounds?" Mils asked.

"Don't worry about it, we'll have plenty of time." Kane responded, as meanwhile Ripley and Lambert were discussing the situation with the payload and ironically the ship's CTO.

"Heavy by 2 million tons... Tabarnak." Lambert said, rubbing her head using the French-Canadian curse word to express her displeasure.

"Yeah... thank God he found it, otherwise we wouldn't have much of a case for going to the union," Ripley stated.

"God, you're starting to sound like Parker!" Lambert huffed in disgust.

"Well, Mils and Parker both agree on one thing - our time is their time and therefore their money, and if we wanna get our fair share then we gotta make sure everything's on the level and the cargo gets to where it's going on time," Ripley explained in defense.

Lambert's face took on a look of contrition as understanding dawned on her. "Ok, I guess that makes sense. So what else did Mils have to say?" Lambert said, looking inquisitively; it took a few moments before Ripley realized what exactly she meant.

"Oh no... No, he didn't do or say anything... he's way too polite and respectful to act first."

"Then what are you waiting for? Make your move already!" Lambert encouraged her, lightly backhanding Ripley in her breast; she would never have missed the opportunity having it up front like this.

"I've never been a first move kind of woman," Ripley admitted.

"You've been married twice!"

"Yeah, and I wouldn't be caught dead comparing those two _bastards_ to Mils any day. I don't wanna insult him."

"Jesus, Ripley, you better do it quick... otherwise someone else will."

"Like you?" Her hands went straight to her waist, her head inclining to look Lambert dead in her eyes as she interprets the navigator's words as a challenge laid before her.

"I wish. He's been so defensive around me..."

"Maybe that's because you've been flirting so aggressively with him for the past couple years," Ripley finished as Dallas walked in, giving an interesting look both to Lambert and Ripley, sitting down next to the former. Mils walked over behind Ripley just as Parker and Brett approached from the nearby hallway.

"Wonder what they want now. What's going on up here?" Parker said looking back behind him shushing Brett. As the pair of engineers walked through the doorway towards the gathering, Parker noticed something right away.

"Um, you happen to be in my seat. Can I have it?" Parker said smiling a threat to Ash who happened to be sitting in his normal seat.

"Oh, yes of course." Ash said getting up right away.

"Thank you." Parker said with a smirk on his face.

"I'm sorry." Ash said under his breath, as Parker brushed off the plush, plastic chair.

"Cap." Mils said looking over at his captain who made eye contact with him as he put one foot on a chair and leaned slightly over the table.

"What's happening now, baby?" Parker asked eagerly.

Dallas took a deep breath before starting. "Well, some of you may have figured out we're not home yet... we're only halfway there." The news caused Parker and Brett, the only ones who were not aware of the dilemma, to look each other in shock.

"What?" Parker said in disbelief, as his captain continued.

"MUTHUR's interrupted the course of our journey," he said.

"Didn't think she could do that all on her own." Mils replied.

"Any idea why?" Kane asked.

"Right…" Brett muttered, getting a dour look from Ripley.

"Well, she's programmed to do that should certain conditions arise. They have."

"Like what?" Ripley asked.

"It seems she has... intercepted a transmission of unknown origin, she got us up to check it out." Dallas responded.

"A transmission? Out here?" Ripley asked in slight disbelief.

"Yeah."

"What kind of a transmission?" Lambert was starting to become anxious, with every tap of her finger on the table. Her question, however, brought out the navigator in her - transmissions had a direction and an origin, and with a proper interpretation of their signal strength, could be traced back to their origin and a course laid in. This was just as much her bread and butter as fixing positions on star charts.

"Acoustical beacon. It repeats at intervals of 12 seconds." Dallas responded, avoiding eye contact with any of them.

"So, it's automated?" Mils asked, getting a nod from Dallas in reply.

"S.O.S.?" Kane asked

"I don't know."

"Human?" Ripley asked.

"Unknown…" Dallas replies with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Well... so what?" Brett asked suddenly, with Parker beginning to laugh.

"We are obligated under section eight..." Kane began to quote but was interrupted by Parker's characteristic rant.

"I hate to bring this up, but, uh... this is a commercial ship, not a rescue ship," Parker said, looking at Brett for support.

"Right..."

"Parker, it's the law to help if someone's in trouble..." Mils added, his comment falling on deaf ears.

"And it's not in my contract to do this kind of duty. And what about the money? If you wanna give me some money, I'll be happy to oblige," Parker continued.

"The man's right." Brett added as usual.

"I mean, let's go over the bonus situation... let's talk about the bonus more." he continued, as Ash had finally had enough.

"You need to read your contract." Mils said from across the room.

"I'm sorry. Can I say something?" he said in an irritated tone; Dallas nodded the proverbial floor over to him.

"There is a clause in the contract which specifically states any systematized transmission indicating a possible intelligent origin must be investigated." Ash stated.

"I don't wanna hear it," Parker balked, his voice taking on a slightly more assertive tone.

"We don't know if it's intelligent." Brett commented in what he thought was defense of his fellow engineer against a decision that didn't involve their job, but unfortunately emphasizing Dallas's point even more.

"I wanna go home and party!" Parker raised his voi**ce**, rubbing his eyes in frustration.

Dallas had had enough. "Parker, will you just listen to the man?!" he yelled, causing everyone to fall silent and pay attention as Dallas rarely raised his voice.

"On penalty of total forfeiture of shares... no money," Ash concluded with a whisper at the last, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head slightly in mock horror. Everyone, even Parker and Brett took notice of this statement, with the two engineers looking very nervous.

"You got that?" Dallas asked them in particular.

"Well... yeah." Parker grinned nervously.

"Alright, we're going in..." Dallas announces as everyone gets their respective game faces on.

"Yeah, we're goin' in, aren't we?" Parker said tapping Brett on the chest lightly, his tune completely changed as the engineers stood up and headed to their stations below, while the officers of the ship moved to the bridge.


	3. Chapter 2: A Transmission & A Planetoid

Alien (1979) is owned by Disney/20th Century Fox.

Novelization owned by Alan Dean Foster and Titan Books.

Original characters are owned by me.

Beta'd by AlphaLima1980

Gamma'd by DarthTenebrus

**Alien: Not Alone**

**Chapter 2: A Transmission, & A Planetoid.**

The officers gathered in the bridge with Lambert taking a seat at her station.

Dallas, Kane and Ripley stood together near the back, while Ash sat near Lambert. Mils moved to sit next to him, and Ash began to edge himself away, fearing that he was sitting in another reserved spot.

"Ahh, you're good, Ash, room for everyone." Mils said, carrying his coffee as he sat next to the quiet science officer.

"Can we all hear that Lambert?" Dallas asked as Lambert pressed a few buttons and turned a few knobs as the sound of the transmission played over the speakers.

A sound like a mix between a whale's song, a machine voice and a heartbeat all muzzled together echoed in the cramped space of the bridge, and only a moment after it ended the crew began to react.

"Good God!" Kane said wide-eyed in a mixture of disbelief, disgust and horror.

"Doesn't sound like any radio signal I've heard." Ripley replied, her expression a subdued echo of Kane's.

"Sounds like a psychedelic song from the 1960s or something..." Mils said with a laugh.

"Maybe it's a voice." Lambert theorized.

"Well, we'll soon know. Can you home in on that?" Dallas asked Lambert, who went to work to pinpoint the source of the transmission.

"What was the, uh, position?"

"6550 dash 99," Dallas stated. As Ash moved from his seating position, Mils moved to look over Lambert's shoulder as the super computers located within the navigations console go to work, beeping and clicking as they triangulated the location.

"All right, well, it found the quadrant. Ascension, six minutes, 20 seconds. Declination, 39 degrees, two seconds." Lambert reported.

"Okay. Put that on the screen for me." Dallas said as the images flashed onto the screen in front of the officers, and Ripley adjusted the contrast on it to clear the image up.

"It's a planetoid, 1200 kilometers." Lambert reported - a planetoid would have beed used to classify unknown objects too big to be considered asteroids, but too small to be considered a habitable planet.

"It's tiny." Kane pointed the obvious.

"Still bigger than Pluto." Mils pointed out, earning a share of smirks from nearly everyone, due to how Pluto had recently regained its classification as a planet.

"Any rotation?"

"About two hours."

"What about gravity?" Dallas asked, scratching his beard.

"Point eight-six." Lambert responded, looking back at Dallas.

"You can walk on it," Ash said dryly, earning a look from Ripley.

"Or crash on it, as someone found out." Mils pointed out.

….

The ship plus its towed refineries headed toward the planetoid, the crew all communicating over the radio.

"Approaching orbital apogee..." Lambert stated, as she began a countdown. "Mark 12… 11..."

"Equatorial orbit nailed." Ash said as the boxed readout detailing the ship's flight path showed up on his monitor.

"Nine, eight seconds and counting."

"Grids energized. Fields focused," Kane remarked.

"Tether still strong, no problems...umbilicus strong, no problems...linkage under control..." Mils stated looking at his monitors.

"Five… four…"

"All stop in fifteen seconds."

"Two one, MARK..." Lambert said as the ship began to slow.

"D.O.R.'s online," Dallas remarked.

"How's the status on the lifters?" Ripley asked.

"Fine," Mils replied.

"Give me an A.C. pressure reading," Dallas ordered.

"48 seconds and counting," Ash said.

"SR-1 stable," Ripley stated.

"Prepare to disengage from platform," Dallas said as Mils grasped the joystick-like control, holding his index finger over the trigger.

"Copy...ready to detach."

"Mark, 20 seconds. 18, 17..." Lambert began to count off as the umbilicus extended, removing the ship from its cargo slowly.

"12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... Lock!" Lambert said as Mils pressed down on his trigger.

"Disengage." Dallas said.

"Disengaging...umbilicus clear..." Mils said as built-in thruster nozzles caused the ship to fall away from the towing clamp, with the readout on Mils monitor showing the clamps letting the ship descend away from the refinery.

"Copy, umbilicus clear. Towing clamps clear." Ripley noted.

"Alright. Money's safe. Let's take her down." Dallas said as the ship's engines ignited into action, propelling the ship forward.

"Alright here we go..." Mils said nervously, as the ship began to roll.

"Roll 92 degrees port yaw..." Kane ordered.

"Prime to Port!" Ripley announced.

"Prime ventral, Prime dorsal."

"Down a degree."

"39,000 Meters." Lambert reported.

"Coming through a multi-layered atmosphere." Mils added.

"Turbulence," Ripley announced, as the ship began to descend into the planetoid's foggy atmosphere.

"Locked and floating. You can drop us anytime now. We'll catch it." Ripley repeated.

"Alright, inertial damping's going off... Hold on, people. There's gonna be a little bump." Dallas announced as the crew bounced a little.

"Some bump," Mils said under his breath, and within a few seconds a loud metallic yell was heard by all, including Parker and Brett from within their chamber below.

"What the hell was _that_?" Parker asked urgently.

"Pressure drop in intake three...Must've lost a shield." Brett reported.

"Let's go with it!" Dallas said as the ship slowly descended into the abyss of the planetoid.

"Dropping off now... still dropping…" Ash continued to report, his eyes never leaving his screen. "Here we are, we've got it."

"Take her down!" Dallas ordered as the ship approached the surface.

"Navigation lights on," he added as the large lights outside the ship all turned on.

"We've got 5-3 still out. No problem. Just down 11%...Grid status okay," Ash said, as the beeping, determining the approaching ground, grew louder and louder.

"Nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one" Lambert reported as the ship finally reached the surface.

"Kill thrusters." Dallas ordered, as the ship's landing gear touched down on the ground. Suddenly the ship shook violently, causing everyone to be jolted forward in their harnesses by the force of the impact.

In the bridge, several small explosions go off with fires igniting, as the crew scramble to extinguish the flames with the loud alarm blaring in everyone's ears. Mils hit his head in the process causing a small cut to open up, as he extinguished a fire nearby with his fire extinguisher.

"What the hell happened?!" Mils shouted over the alarms from his position.

"Somebody give me a straight answer!" Dallas yelled.

"Is the hull breached?" Kane asked.

"I don't see anything; we've still got pressure." Ripley reported as the alarms were silenced.

"Hit the screen," Dallas ordered, as Kane checked the monitor in front of him which remained off.

"Right. Nothing," Kane commented.

"Let's see what Simon and Garfunkel think!" Mils suggested as a streak of blood ran down his face.

Dallas contacted Parker and Brett, as the winds from the outside storm continued to blow rapidly.

"The secondary load sharing unit... is out. Three to four cells are gone." Parker informed the bridge.

"Is that it?" Ripley queried.

"No, hold on... we can't fix it out here anyway, and we need to reroute... a couple of these ducts wouldn't you say, Brett?"

"Dry-dock time." Kane reports.

In the bowels of the engineering section of the ship, Parker and Brett continued their report.

"Dry-dock... tell him we need to dry-dock." Brett said annoyed.

"Look, we couldn't fix it out here anyway, we've gotta reroute all these ducts, and in order to do that we've got to dry-dock." Parker reported.

"What else?" Dallas said with a sigh.

"Some fragments caked up, and we've got to clean it all out and repressurize it."

"How, long before we're functional?" Ripley asked, causing both Brett and Parker to be even more annoyed.

"Look, what is - what?"

"It's 17 hours, tell her." Brett stated.

"At least 25 hours."

"Yeah."

"Get started on Four panel... I'll be right down," Ripley responded as the communication across departments ceased.

"What the hell's she comin' down here for?" Parker asked no-one in particular.

"She better stay the fuck out of my way, I'll tell you that!" Brett remarked.

"I'd like to see what she's gonna do when she gets here!" Parker added as the pair attended to their individual tasks.

Back on the bridge other courses of action were determined.

"Okay, Mils go with Ripley see what you can help out with," Dallas ordered. Mils touched his head a few times to see if he was still bleeding as he followed Ripley towards engineering.

"Mils! Oh shit, your head!" Ripley notices as they walk.

"It's alright...just a scratch..."

"Scratches don't bleed Mils!" She protested, grabbing a nearby towelette and cleaning the wound as best she can, and then putting a bandage on it.

"Jesus Rip! Don't baby me."

"Pipe down! There - it should be disinfected and clotted at least. Now come on, we have a ship to fix," Ripley said leading her crewmate down a ladder.

"Yes ma'am!" he said following her.

Dallas, Kane, Ash, and Lambert remained on the bridge trying to get a final position on the location of the beacon.

"Any response yet?" Dallas asked as Ash worked on a nearby console, with Lambert staring off into space with a cigarette in her mouth.

"No. Absolutely nothing, except the same transmission every 12 seconds. All the other channels are dead," Ash responded.

Dallas called down to engineering. "Kick on the floods," he ordered. In less than a minute the massive lights on the exterior of the ship turned on, illuminating the surrounding rocky area.

Ash and Dallas tag-teamed the process of trying to locate the beacon, or maybe even contact the ones responsible for setting it up.

"Well, we can't go anywhere in this." Kane said, walking up and taking notice of the powerful storm outside.

"Mmm..." Dallas agreed.

"Well, MUTHUR said the sun's coming up in 20 minutes." Ash pointed out.

"How far are we from the source of the transmission?" Dallas asked.

"Uh, northeast. Just under 2,000 meters," Ash reported

"Walking distance?" Kane asked, with Dallas releasing a small laugh despite the seriousness of the question, Ash smirks as well.

"Well–" he began to say before Dallas interrupted him.

"Can you give me an atmospheric?"

"Yes." Ash said as he typed in a few commands on his console. Within a few seconds countless symbols came up, and the data caused Ash to nearly smile - the man had apparently been a huge fan of paleogeology.

"Oh…" he purred, "it's almost primordial. There's inert nitrogen, high concentration of carbon dioxide crystals, methane. I'm working on the trace elements."

"Anything else?"

"Yes. It's rock, lava based… and _deep_ cold, well below the line," Ash reported as being a planetoid that dense, it can only be rock or even metal making up the surface.

"Mm-hmm..." Dallas said getting ironically amused.

"I'll volunteer to be in the first group to go out." Kane said.

"Yeah that figures... get Mils up here too we might need the extra hands, you too Lambert!" Dallas ordered.

"Swell..." Lambert smiled with all the sarcasm in the world as she dashed out her cigarette.

"Better break out the weapons... Ash, main airlock in 10 minutes."

"Understood..."

….

"Okay try it..." Mils said as Ripley checked a nearby console while they were tag-teaming a repair in the bowels of the ship.

"All in the green, now what?"

"We move on to the next one." Mils said rubbing his forehead with his forearm.

"This is gonna take a while isn't it..." Ripley groused.

"Yeah, but with the four of us it should go a little smoother."

"Easier said than done with those two..." Ripley admitted, just then Dallas comes over the radio.

"Mils! Need you up here," he ordered.

Mils responded into the nearest radio. "Why? What's up?"

"We've got a lock on the signal, gonna go check it out, want you with us..."

"Why, expecting trouble?" Ripley asked.

"Best to have an engineer and I don't feel like burdening Parker and Brett, they have enough to do as it is." Dallas explained.

"Copy, be there in a few –" Mils said switching the comm off and turning towards Ripley.

"He's really gonna take half the crew with him?" Ripley pondered audibly, not exactly pleased that her partner in crime was temporarily leaving her.

"More hands to help with salvage, should we find any," Mils said as he headed towards the ladder. He turned around to look at his friend one last time.

"Hey at least you'll get to run the ship for a while..." he said with a smirk as she walked up to him.

"Great... look Mils, just be careful please," Ripley said looking into his gray eyes.

"Well... I'm not much on being careful," Mils said scratching the back of his head.

"Then be safe...for me," Ripley said as she leaned in and cautiously placed a kiss on his cheek.

It was Mils' turn to blush. "Oh jeez, Rip... if that's how it's gonna be, then I'll have to do my best. Just make sure the ship's still here when we get back," he said with a wink, causing Ripley to share in his condition.

"No promises..." she said with a chuckle as Mils climbed the ladder to the upper level. Ripley looked for a second more before returning to her work.

….

In the central airlock, the search team prepared for their quest to find the signal's location. All of them struggled into their heavy space suits, and Ash assisted them wearing an equally uncomfortable jumpsuit used to keep the body warm in the rough atmosphere.

"Try to stay together out there, I want constant communication with Ash and each other," Dallas said as he climbed into his suit.

"Right." Kane said.

"God, I hate this already!" Lambert lamented.

"Relax Lambert, maybe we'll find some nice rocks for the science division, right Ash?" Mils said as Ash helped him into his suit. The suits themselves were very big and bulky, even having the occasional fault in the breathing apparatus. It was a cost paid on having Weyland Yutani mass produce the suits.

"I highly doubt it, but if you could bring some mineral deposits back it would be of great help to the science division's agriculture program..." Ash answered glibly as he placed the domed helmet of the suit onto Mils' head.

"We'll keep our eyes peeled..." Kane stated sarcastically. The scans had already showed that LV426, as the star charts had labelled it, was completely devoid of life. Planetary prerequisites for the development of life included the geological as well as the atmospheric, and this place was sorely lacking in the geological department. Perhaps processing the atmosphere might give someone a slight chance here, but not much, they had all thought.

"Alright, everyone into the airlock!" Dallas stated as the team shuffled into the airlock entrance, sitting on a small bench.

Ash moved into an observation area nearby - the equipment in this area was for monitoring outside activities while docked like repairs, cargo delivery and even departures in crowded areas.

Ash zipped up the remainder of his jumpsuit, blowing hot air into his hands to try to warm himself up, even going so far to jog in place quickly to get his blood flowing as one of the drawbacks to using the observation deck was it was the closest to the airlock, and now since the ship wasn't exactly 100% it was deathly cold inside the enclosed space.

After enduring a few minutes of waiting, the doors to the exterior of the ship opened up inside the airlock entrance; with Dallas leading the way and Mils in the rear, they stepped onto the platform used to lower freight and other cargo, taking note of the massive hurricane-like storm blowing before them, the only illuminance coming from a rotating industrial light, the team's helmets already beginning to fog up as they were lowered away.

Ash's automatic chair slid near the large observation window. Once locked in place, Ash made sure the links to the helmet cams were secure. When they finally stepped on the rocky surface, Dallas' first goal was to make visual contact with Ash.

"I can't see a goddamn thing!" Lambert yelled.

"It's like a Category 5 hurricane out here!" Mils added.

"Ash! Are you receiving?" Dallas shouted over the chaos of the storm and his crew's comments, Ash responded with a nod, a smile, and a twiddle of his hands.

"Good contact on my board," Ash responded.

"Clear and free. Let's keep the line open. Let's go!" Dallas yelled as Ash monitored the team's actions over their helmet cameras.

"On your six Cap!" Mils said as they began their journey to the beacon's location.

….

In the bowels of the ship's would-be guts, Brett, Parker and Ripley were plugging away on the repair work. Without Mils to act as a buffer between them, the already tense atmosphere was even more obvious. Ripley was keeping to herself, jotting down a few notes in a notebook she kept handy for finishing the electronic logs that were required by law to be done.

Subconsciously, however, she was dealing with a mixture of emotions. Like the rest of the crew, she was a little nervous at the ship's state, the signal sent from the world they were now on, and what exactly the search team would find.

She particularly though was feeling something else, something more personal, perhaps concern for the search team, or rather a particular member of the team.

It was no question that the two of them got along. They even would occasionally call each other by their first name, which was a rarity in their line of work. She was now coming to terms with what he meant to her, she was willing to consider third time being the charm in terms of a relationship, she finally admitted to herself that she wanted to be with Mils. She felt safe, at home, and relaxed around him, and she thought he might even be a good stepfather to Amanda, something that her second ex definitely wasn't. She also wasn't above helping him with his estranged son, smiling at Amanda's reaction to having a stepbrother.

If she ignored the emotional attraction, she had for him, then the physical threatened to definitely take over. Mils was tan, toned, and tall, and something any woman would fall for. But Mils being a gentleman more or less swept Ripley off her feet, plus his sense of humor, charm, and confidence made her heart skip a beat every time.

She really wanted him to be there with her in the depths of the ship, rather than out facing the elements, searching for some God forsaken signal. She also had made the first move as well, planting a "good-luck" kiss on his shaven cheek before he ventured up the ladder.

"You better come back safe Andrew," she had thought as he climbed up the ladder to B Deck.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the constant thorn in her side, as Parker and Brett approach from the steam being produced by some nearby pipes, causing an almost deafening hiss to be released into the air. Parker leaned on one of the pipe's valves, while Brett flanked him, lighting a cigarette with a blow torch.

"Hey Ripley! Hey Ripley, I wanna ask you a question!" Parker asked as Ripley turned reluctantly to face the duo, closing her notebook as well.

"If they find what they're looking for out there, does that mean we get full shares?" Parker asked, Ripley loaded her sarcasm cannon for the retort.

"Don't worry Parker! Yeah! You'll get whatever's coming to you!" she replied.

"Look, I'm not gonna do anymore work till we get this straightened out." Brett insisted.

"Brett! You're guaranteed by law to get a share," Ripley responded, reinforcing the point and wondering what sense of solidarity could compel engineers to not let a ship lift off of a barren world.

"WHAT?" Parker halfheartedly yelled over the steam, a grin forming suddenly on his face at what Ripley had suggested out of the blue.

"Why don't you just fuck off?" Ripley said, beginning to turn away.

"What?" Parker asked again.

"Eh, what ya say, Rip?" Brett said, using Mils' nickname for Ripley, and she turned around one more time.

"If you have any trouble, I'll be on the bridge," Ripley said with a smirk as she seemingly fades away through the steamed filled hallway, as Parker and Brett mull over her uncharacteristically laid-back response.

"Hey Ripley, come back here! Woah-oh-oh-oh!" Parker called out just before turning a valve and shutting the steam off, restoring some form of audible order, Brett laughed as his partner cursed.

"Son of a bitch!"

"What's the matter?" Brett asked as Parker turns the valve again, releasing the steam's scream into the world.

….

The atmosphere and landscape of the planetoid was just as Ash had described. It was a cross between a volcanic wasteland, the Sahara Desert and the Antarctic. The winds were a consistent gust, themselves producing a howling similar to a pack of wolves in an amphitheater. There were small rocky formations all over, making trekking across that space very hard.

The foursome had only been walking for a few minutes and were already beginning to tire of the journey.

"Now this is a workout... right Mils?" Kane asked

"Tell me about it, I feel like I've lost about six pounds in sweat already!" Mils responded.

"Can't see a goddamn thing!" Lambert shouted.

"Quit griping!" Kane scolded her.

"I like griping," she retorted.

"Come on, knock it off!" Dallas said turning to face his crew, and Mils gave him a wave of obedience, just as they moved through a small cavern of rocks.

….

Ripley sipped on what felt like her 100th cup of coffee, patiently waiting for updates on the team's status. After what felt like an eternity, she contacted Ash.

"How's it going?" she asked startling Ash slightly, who responded with a hint of annoyance.

"All right," he responded, keeping his eyes on the monitors in front of him.

"Have you tried putting that transmission through E.C.I.U.?" she asked, E.C.I.U. standing for the Extraterrestrial Communication Interpretation Unit. It was used to decipher any form of foreign or alien messages, not for the sole purpose of discovering life outside of Earth, but more for determining origin, content, or purpose of the message.

"No, MUTHUR hasn't identified it yet... a lot of information to go through," he replied, sounding for some reason like he was prevaricating.

"You mind if I give it a shot?"

"Please do..." Ash responded with a quasi-polite tone. Ripley headed immediately to a nearby console, flipping a few switches as she sat down with a thud and a sigh, propping her leg up to use it as a rest as the super computers went to work.

….

The winds had died down, and the crew marched more cautiously across the wasteland-like terrain. The sun illuminated their way a little, and as they approached a small hill, they spotted something in the distance, something large, metallic, and almost appearing to rise out of the ground.

They had found it, they had found the source of the signal.


	4. Chapter 3: The Derelict

Alien (1979) is owned by Disney/20th Century Fox. Novelisation owned by Alan Dean Foster and Titan Books.

Original characters are owned by me.

Beta'd by AlphaLima1980

Gamma'd by DarthTenebrus

**Alien: Not Alone**

**Chapter 3: The Derelict**

The team stared off into the distance, looking in awe and bewilderment at the horseshoe-shaped object ahead of them.

After a few moments of eerie silence, Dallas reported back to Ash.

"Ash, can you see this?"

"Yes I can... I've never seen anything like it." He replied, staring back at the screen from his secluded space aboard the Nostromo.

"It's very bizarre." Dallas commented.

"You said it!" Kane pointed out as he stared cluelessly.

"What is it?" Lambert asked out loud.

"Looks like a giant horseshoe, hate to wonder how it got here!" Mils pondered, wondering how a ship that big with such a unique design could have crashed. Dallas, who was from Montana, imagined the image of a giant throwing the horseshoe sized ship into the ground like a game.

"Alright, we're moving to second... position" Dallas reports, trying to stay on the task at hand.

"Let's get out of here," Lambert suggested, a bit more assertive now in her clear anxiety, but she was quickly outvoted by her crew members.

"Ahh, come on Lambert, where's your sense of adventure?" Mils asked

"Back on the ship!" Lambert retorted.

"We've come this far, we must go on. We have to go on!" Kane stressed with a grunt, as the team prepared to embark on the final part of their adventure. The distance from the _Nostromo_, plus the proximity to the derelict itself has caused the communications between the team and Ash to break down.

"Will you say that again?! Shit!" Ash said as the video feed broke apart with static and bursts of fractured audio, causing the science officer more stress with every second.

"Ash if you c- see this, I don't have... describe it," Dallas' voice crackled through the static-filled radio messages.

"I'm going back to the console," Ash reported despite his lonely position, he pulled a small lever back as the chair automatically moved to the central control terminal, and he rubbed his hands to warm them for the work they were about to do.

The team finally reached the base of the ship; they crawled over the piles of rock, gravel and stone, and Lambert was forced to crawl on her hands and knees, and Mils helped her up with a grunt.

"Upsy daisy!" Mils said, Lambert replied nodding tiredly.

"Ash, if you can hear me... there seems to be no life, no sign of life... we are the second position, near the first of three entrances... near the base of the thing."

"The bottom of the horseshoe, Captain!" Mils added.

"Right, I don't mean to be lighthearted but looks like a giant lamb-roast knocked over." Dallas said with a grunt resembling a laugh, very characteristic of his personality.

"Great! Now you've got me hungry," Kane said laughing as the group tried to catch their breath.

"Alright, we've reached one of the left two entrances..." Dallas reported.

Despite his best efforts, Ash didn't receive the message, and he wondered then if something in the material used to build the ship was interfering with their transmission.

"Dallas?!" the officer retorted, and if it wasn't for the cold atmosphere, he inhabited he would have been sweating by now.

"The chamber or hallway is very long; it seems to go on for quite a while... well?" Dallas stated turning around to the others, honestly asking if they want to continue, perhaps even hoping they would say no.

"Well, I think we should try it... I mean, we've come so far... we must go on!" Kane responded.

"Yeah, gotta be something in there!" Mils added, looking hopeful.

"Or someone." Lambert suggested.

"Alright, moving on!"

The dark hallways sent tingles and sweat beads down the bodies of the crew. There was no longer any doubt that the ship they were in was alien in nature, no human hands or machines had assembled the corridors they now walked down carefully. The walls themselves looked like bones from some giant creature's skeleton; Dallas and Lambert examined them a little closer.

"Mils come on, this way!" Kane said as he passed Dallas, Mils followed him.

Kane and Mils reached the end of the corridor. Before them there was an open space, circular in shape with a large domed ceiling. In the center, a low platform rose with a strange object over it. Kane compared it to an astronomical observatory while Mils thought it was some kind of artillery cannon.

"Come here! There's something different down here!" Kane said seeing the strange object.

"What is it?" Dallas asked

"Beats me!" Mils responded trying to peer over the platform standing on the tips of his toes.

"I don't know what it is, but-" Kane commented as the others approached. "See if we can up that wall... if we can get up that wall, we can find out."

"Yeah sure, I'll give you a boost!" Mils told him; he placed his gloved hands together to form a step.

"Alright ready, be quick these suits aren't exactly light to begin with!" Mils stressed sotto voice as he prepared to lift Kane just high enough to get him to grasp onto the side of the platform.

"Sounds good, in three... 1… 2… 3!" Kane said as he pressed his foot on Mils' hands and with one solid motion he was lifted as Mils grunted in discomfort despite the lower gravity of the planetoid, and his pain eased when Kane pulled himself onto the platform, what he saw caused him to gulp deeply.

In the center of the platform was what looked like a giant chair with a large..."thing" lying on top of it, with what appears to be a telescope near the upper half. The object they had seen from below was attached to a strange chair on which a large "thing" rested. They called it a "thing" because albeit being humanoid, its face was different; it was like an earless elephant with the trunk fused to its belly, and the creature itself seemed to be fused to the chair.

"Jesus!" Kane exclaimed, as the rest of the crew followed him in ascending the platform, with Mils being helped up by Dallas.

"Thanks... Holy shit!"

"It looks like a telescope," Lambert commented, reaching the same conclusion as Kane.

"Amazing," Kane said, looking at the sheer size of the room they were in.

"You said it!" Mils added in the impression s Dallas and Lambert investigated the thing lying on top of the chair.

"Alien lifeform... looks like it's been dead a long time... almost mummified or fossilized... looks like it's growing out of the chair." Dallas observed climbing up to get a closer look, still thinking Ash might be overseeing their investigation. Even if he himself might not have been able to directly monitor the expedition, the helmet cams they wore had recording features for later analysis.

Kane and Mils had made their way over to other side of the chair. "Bones are bent outward, like he exploded from the inside." Dallas continued, looking at a strange wound which was possibly the cause of both the creature's death and the crash.

"I wonder what happened to the rest of the crew." Lambert said, rhetorically.

"Let's get the hell out of here!" Lambert stresses, her nervous demeanor on display. Dallas for a change followed her advice as the two moved away from the chair, however Kane noticed something.

"Mils look!" Near the chair, on the platform's floor was a hole, like some kind of ventilation shaft on which the grating or cover plate was corroded. On its edges were metal icicles hanging down the hole.

"Yeah, I see it, looks melted... maybe over time it gave way?" Mils said, as an engineer he knew water or maybe metal wear can cause serious damage to structures. He had seen a ship decompress due to lack of maintenance in the reactor cooling towers, a deadly lesson for anyone who wanted to become an engineer.

"Don't know! Dallas, Lambert get over here! Come on!"

"What do you got?"

"See what you make of this!" Kane responded as the pair joined the others.

"Looks like it leads to a cargo hold of some sort, we should check it out!" Mils theorized.

"I don't like it, but we may find the signal... get the winch set up... better put the one inch cable on there," Dallas ordered with the one inch cable more than one person could be attached to the same wire in a line.

"Got it!" Mils said unpacking the winch parts.

….

Ripley was still staring at the fast-moving screen of ones and zeroes, when a flashing message appeared, snapping her out of her trance. What it showed her, immediately made her pulse quicken.

"Ash?" she called, pressing a nearby button, "That transmission, MUTHER's deciphered part of it, and it doesn't look like a S.O.S."

"What is it then?" Ash asked, slightly annoyed at the interruption.

"Well I-it looks like a warning…" Ripley announced, immediately getting worried for the safety of the team, especially for one particular officer. "I'm gonna go after them."

"What's the point?" he asked quickly, catching Ripley off guard. "I mean, by the time it takes to get there, you'll- you'll know if it's a warning or not, yes?" Ash raised his voice slightly, and Ripley reclined back into her chair, defeated by Ash's logic. The science officer exhaled a breath of perhaps relief.

….

The crew had set up the winch in record time; it was now ready for its first rider, and of course Kane volunteered, again.

"Alright Kane... Be careful now don't unhook yourself or Mils under any circumstances, and both of you be out of there in 10 minutes, you got that? Mils?"

"Yes, got it! Aye, Captain!" Kane said discomforted by his position.

"Yes sir!" Mils replied, getting ready.

"Alright, once you've reached any form of solid surface let us know, Mils will guide himself down after ya," Dallas advised.

"Okay here we go!" Kane called out somewhat nervously as he was lowered through the hole; he aimed his light against the wall in front of him, which resembled a spinal column in an animal's backbone in design.

"You alright down there? Can you see anything?" Dallas asked

"I don't know... a cave! It's not a cargo hold; it's a cave of some sort, Mils!" Kane reported as he turned himself around to face the large space, the atmosphere appearing humid with moisture pooling on the walls.

"Well, I can't see much, it's like the goddamn tropics in here-" he continued, but upon discovery he noticed yards upon yards of orb like objects on a mist-covered floor, with a thin blue light shining across the entire area just above the ground.

"What the hell is this?!" Kane whispered out loud, and Mils readied himself with the winch, attaching his harness to the line, in this system the first person would guide the search, with the second person having the line wrapped around his waist to balance the two.

"Got a bad feeling about this, Dallas."

"You and me both, Mils. Just be ready," the captain encouraged him.

Kane had reached a part of the wall where it began to shift in a curve joining the ground, where he decided to use it for a foundation.

"Alright, I'm down... I've hit bottom, so to speak," Kane called on his suit comm.

"Alright, I'm on my way down," Mils said as he slowly began to slide down the metallic line. Once there, he saw Kane and noticed the objects as well as the size of the hanger like area.

"Holy shit! This is unbelievable... you could fit the Narcissus in here!" Mils reported, once he arrived on the same level and made eye contact with Kane.

"Alright, Dallas we're both down... Be up in 10!" Mils reported.

"Beginning our analysis," Kane spoke. "The cave is completely enclosed and it's full of leathery objects… like eggs or something."

"Hate to find out what laid these things…. looks like a testicle," Mils added, looking at the objects, and he noticed something at that moment.

"Kane, you hear that?" Mils asked as he focused his ears as best, he could on a hi-frequency ringing.

"Yeah..." Kane says getting down onto one knee, when he does this the ringing increases in both loudness and ferocity; he places his hand down through the blue line of light.

"There's a layer of mist...just covering the eggs, that reacts when broken. Might be what's causing that sound we're hearing -" Kane reported back, at the last instant losing his grip and sliding down the sides of the walkway. Mils hurriedly made his way over to his crewmate as fast as he could given the limitations of his environment suit.

"Shit! Kane!" Mils shouted.

"Kane! Are you all right?" Dallas asked through the radio.

"Yeah, I'm okay, alright!" Kane stressed despite Mils concerned look through his helmet.

"You sure?" Mils asked, just a few feet away.

"I'm okay, I just slipped!" Kane confirmed, he looks down on the egg-like objects, approaching one in particular. Meanwhile Mils was looking around at the other eggs from the raised walkway.

"Man, if Helwig or Ash were here, they'd be having a field day!" Mils exclaimed. Kane down closely at one of the eggs.

"It appears to be completely sealed..." Kane said, raising his hand to near the top of the egg, and without any preview a hiss was heard, catching Mils' attention. At the same time moisture appeared to bead and fall off the egg-like object, as though it had started to thaw out.

"Hey Kane, I wouldn't do that!" he urged as Kane put a light near the egg, revealing an organism of some sort which moved inside the object.

"Mils! Wait a minute, there's movement! It appears to have life, organic life-" Kane theorizes as the egg opened up, Kane in a trance of some sort peered down at the interior of the now opened egg.

"Kane get out of there!" Mils yelled as he moved to pull the XO out, but the cable tangled.

"Dallas! Need more wire!" Mils called out loud on radio, while warning his crewmate "Kane don't!" suddenly the organism within the egg jumped out with a squeal faster than anything Mils had seen move. It had latched onto Kane's helmet, melting the plastic and glass composite, making way to his face in seconds.

"Aww Fuck! Dallas! More wire, get ready to pull us up!" Mils yelled as he tries to make his way over to Kane, he pulls him up with all of his strength, looking in horror at his predicament.

"Why? What happened?!" Dallas questioned, oblivious to the situation.

"For God's sake, just pull us up now!" Mils cried out loud as he took his harness off, wrapping it around Kane's waist, then disconnecting Kane's original line placing it on his belt.

"I'm pulling you up!" Dallas told him as Kane's unconscious body rose above Mils, with a jolt he was lifted to the top as well; once he got there he unhooked as Dallas and Lambert looked at the XO's condition with horrific eyes.

"What the hell happened?"

"Don't know, that thing came out of one of the eggs... latched onto his face!"

"We've got to get him back to the ship!" Dallas said as Mils grabbed Kane's shoulders, while Dallas took his feet.

"Lambert! Lambert! Lead the way!" Dallas ordered the visibly disturbed young woman, who followed the orders enthusiastically.

….

If Ellen Ripley was a drinker she would have been sipping on some liquor to calm her nerves - the team had been gone for over an hour with no sign or sound coming from them. Jones showcased concern as well, meowing loudly.

"Shh. It's okay, they'll be back soon," she said soothingly, stroking his fur as she attempted to calm him.

At the same time Ash was just staring with his hands holding his head up on his knees, looking out into the storm with bewilderment, then he noticed something moving. After a few moments he spotted the team, led by Lambert with Kane being carried by Mils and Dallas. Ash moved quickly towards the airlock, while Mils and Dallas placed Kane gently on the freight elevator.

Ripley noticed this as a notification appeared nearby on a console.

"You there Ripley?!" Dallas called.

"I'm right here," she responded, getting up from her chair quickly as the team ascended up into the ship. Once they reached the airlock they loaded Kane into it as the doors closed behind them. Ash arrived outside the airlock as the airlock began its sanitation process.

The team reached the elevator at the base of the landing gear, the one they took down before. Dallas and Mils carried Kane aboard, puffing. Lambert pressed a button and the cage climbed up till it reached the main airlock's outer door. They stepped inside and once the outer door closed, the decontamination process began.

"Okay, Ripley! I'm at the inner hatch now!" Ash reported

"Right!" Ripley acknowledged him.

"Hey Ripley?" Dallas called out over the ship's comm.

"Right here!"

"We're clean, let us in," Dallas ordered her, once the decontamination ended and antiseptic gas was pumped out. Ripley was about to press the button but suddenly she hesitated.

"What happened to Kane?" she asked.

"Something has attached itself to him; we have to get him to the infirmary right away."

"What kind of thing, I need a clear definition!" Ripley stressed, her by-the-book attitude taking control as Mils and Lambert both exchanged worried glances.

"An organism, open the hatch!" Dallas yelled impatient.

"Wait a minute! If we let it in, the ship could be infected... you know the quarantine procedure, 24 hours for decontamination," she clarified.

"He could _die_ in 24 hours, open the hatch!" Dallas raised his voice, asserting his authority as Ship's Captain.

"Listen to me, if we break quarantine procedure we all could die!" Ripley replied coldly.

"Look, would you open the goddamn hatch! We have to g-get him inside!" Lambert yelled back. This time Ripley pondered the decision, liking her lips as she thought about it.

Ripley surely had her reasons to not to skip quarantine. When she was young on Luna, a XMB virus outbreak caused many deaths and Ripley to stay in quarantine.

"No. I can't do that, and if you were in my position, you'd do the same!" She reaffirmed her posture.

"Ripley, this is an order, open that hatch right now do you hear me?!" Dallas said, getting angrier with every tense second.

"Yes..."

"Ripley this is an ORDER! Do you hear me?!" Dallas shouted at the speaker.

"Yes, I read you...the answer is negative." Ripley was inflexible.

"That bitch!" Lambert cursed, causing Mils to step up to the proverbial plate.

"Rip! You hear me? Look Kane needs help now! You don't want his death on your conscious, come on... Ya gotta open it… please!" Mils argued, hoping his calm demeanor and the addition of the word "please" might sway her decision.

Ripley didn't respond so quickly this time, this was Mils now talking... Was she really willing to let him stay out there? Would she put business before interest? She didn't get a chance to deliberate about it as Ash pressed the button and cycled the airlock, letting the crew inside.

"Inner hatch open!" he announced.

Ripley broke out of her trance and watched through the security feed, incensed at Ash's brazen decision.

The team entered the ship, Mils and Dallas quickly removing their spacesuits, and then they lifted Kane and rushed him over to the infirmary with Ash in tow. Lambert, still shaken up by the whole experience, just took her space suit off.


	5. Chapter 4: My God

Alien (1979) is owned by Disney/20th Century Fox.

Novelization owned by Alan Dean Foster and Titan Books.

Original characters are owned by me.

Beta'd by AlphaLima1980

Gamma'd by DarthTenebrus

**Alien: Not Alone**

**Chapter 4: My God**

In the medical ward, Dallas and Mils moved Kane immediately onto the observation table. They started the process of cutting his space-suit off with surgical scissors, leaving his helmet on as it still appeared to be sealed, more likely as not upon first glance to be irremovable without cutting it away. Dallas was watching over the process carefully, helping Mils where he could, but he felt like a bumbling amateur in terra incognita. This was Ash's sickbay, and when Ash entered the room the operation was handed off to him almost immediately.

"Alright, Mils get everyone up here, and have them assemble at the observation window, and check on Lambert," Dallas ordered as he grabbed a sterile mask and operating smock from a nearby cabinet. Ash hadn't bothered to wait for him, having already done the same.

"Okay, you gonna be alright?" Mils asked out loud.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good. Let's begin, Ash," Dallas responded as Ash examined the executive officer's status.

"Dallas? Make sure to keep your mask on," Ash stresses, trying to proceed by the books.

"Where should we start?"

"I suggest we cut the helmet off, the parts that the organism hasn't penetrated yet... he has a pulse and is still breathing." Ash reported.

"So that's good, right? It hasn't killed him," Dallas responds.

"We need to take this slow, don't want to rush things."

...

Mils marched to the airlock with his hair drenched in sweat and his nerves on edge from the adrenaline of the situation. His priority was to find Lambert - he had known her for several years and knew how frazzled she could get especially over something as stressful as the last few hours. He moved to the airlock and spotted the young navigator, sitting down on the floor near her discarded spacesuit. Her eyes were red, her skin was pale, and she seemed to be shaking lightly.

"Lambert? Lambert," Mils said gently, placing a hand on her shoulder to snap her out of the trance. He succeeds, but she continues to stare up at him. "They're looking at Kane now, Dallas wants everybody in medical... come on." Mils offered her a hand, helping her stand.

"How is he?" she asked, almost whispering.

"He was breathing... that's all I know... go on, I'll catch up," Mils said tenderly as he headed to the nearest communicator. "Parker, Brett! Get to medical," Mils called them through.

"Didn't know you were back, Mils. Find anything nice and expensive?" Parker asked as Mils grumbles.

"You'll see when you get up here!"

"Does it have to be now Mils? We we're just about finished with this cell and Four Panel," Parker complained.

"Right," echoed Brett as per usual.

"Just get the fuck up here!" Mils yelled, having had enough of Parker's cavalier attitude. He heard the pitter-patter of feet nearby; he turns to look making eye contact with Ripley who marched up to him.

"Mils, thank God! What the hell is going on?!" She asked.

"A lot," he sighed.

"Ash... he let you all in?"

"Yeah."

"What was he thinking?" Ripley nearly shouted at him. "Doesn't he know it's against quarantine law?"

"I know Rip, I just…" he hesitated, "I don't know what we found, I just hope we don't all pay the price for letting Kane back in here. Guess we'll find out soon. I think I need a cigarette, I'm still running on adrenaline..." Mils says leaning against the wall, placing his head on his hands. Ripley noticed this and was taken aback by her friend's demeanor. Mils was obviously shaken up by the situation and was now only just appearing to be coming down. All Ripley could do was place a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Mils said. "I'm just wound up."

"Yeah, we all are," she nodded. "Come on - let's see if Kane's faring any better..." the warrant officer said as she followed him to medical.

…..

Ash used a vibro-cutter, designed for cutting through thick surfaces to slice through the still intact sections of Kane's helmet, splitting the orb into two sections with the center consisting of the creature still attached to Kane's face.

Lambert, Brett and Parker were in the adjacent hallway, looking through a massive window for observational purposes. Brett looked on with wonder at Dallas' perplexed appearance while Lambert stared off with concern for Kane. With the creature covering his face, it was impossible to get an impression of his emotional state. Not that there usually was in comatose people, Lambert thought, but that didn't mean they didn't feel anything.

Parker on the other hand, was leafing through a porno-mag.

"Hey Brett, look at that! Nice, huh?" Parker said, but Brett ignored him.

Ash placed the cutter to the side, and with Dallas' help removed the two sections of helmet, revealing the creature in full detail.

"My God…" was all Dallas was able to mutter.

It resembled a spider in body, wet leathery skin, but with a long tail wrapped around Kane's neck, tightening after the removal of the helmet.

"My God! What the hell is that?" Dallas exclaimed, looking down at the creature before him on his crewmember's face.

"Wait a minute... Jesus Christ…!" Brett backed away from the window, lowering himself down to Parker's side, who tossed aside the magazine to look at what Brett had seen.

"What the hell is that?" Parker asked no-one in particular.

"Is He alive or what?" Brett adds in question.

"Hey. how the hell's he breathing?" Parker yelled into the medical ward. "And why don't you guys freeze him?!"

"Right!" Brett agreed.

"How come they don't freeze him? What's going on in there anyway?" Parker asked Lambert and Brett simultaneously as Ripley descended the ladder from the upper level with Mils close behind. She marched into the hallway; her head full of steam at the whole situation.

"Alright, what the fuck is going on?!" she yelled, Lambert, upon hearing her voice and without hesitating, responded by marching up and delivering her a mouth numbing slap, which echoes through the hallway.

"_You bitch_!" Lambert yelled at her "You were gonna leave us out there!"

Brett and Parker jump to action pulling Lambert away from Ripley before they can tear each other apart.

"Let go of me!" Lambert growled.

"Hey! Hey!" Brett settled for yelling, without a calming word in his head or a soothing gesture in his repertoire.

"Jesus Christ! Break it up!" Parker yelled holding up Lambert, while Brett stepped in between the two women.

Ripley began to dive back into the fray, to give Lambert back as good as she'd gotten, but her hand was caught by Mils.

"Come on Rip, it ain't worth it!" he said sternly, standing next to her.

"Alright! Ripley when I give an order I expect to be obeyed!" Dallas yells from inside medical.

"Even if it's against the law?!" Ripley retorted an answer with equal volume, looking into the medical ward toward Dallas and the Auto-doc.

"YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT!" Dallas replies at the top of his lungs.

Parker came to her defense. "Well maybe she has a point! I mean, who the hell knows what that thing is!"

"Right!"

"Look, Dallas I wasn't exactly keen on staying in the airlock forever either! But, she had a reason..." Mils started but was silenced by Dallas.

"If I wanted your opinion Mils I'd ask for it!" he shouted at a more subdued volume, the worst part of his anger gone, but still silencing Mils.

"I'm sorry Lambert; I was just doing my job." Ripley said, looking over at the other woman who was sitting with an expression on her face that bordered between sadness, shame and calm.

"How is he?" she asks out loud.

"Don't know they just took his helmet off." Brett pointed out.

"Jesus, that's what came out of one of those eggs. I was right there, I saw it." Mils said.

"Eggs?" Ripley asked, confused.

"Yeah, we went down into what looked to be a cargo hold, we... found these things, Kane thought they were eggs, he was right... I tried to stop him... I truly did... I was too late." Mils told her, stuttering.

"You can't blame yourself... I mean you didn't know."

"Yeah, guess so."

"How we gonna get that off him? How we gonna get it off?" Dallas repeated loudly as he placed the severed piece of Kane's helmet down on the deck.

"Just a minute! Let me get some instruments..." Ash said, walking around Dallas and focussing on a compartment mounted on the wall. A touch of a button later the facing clamshell swung down on motors to reveal a range of surgical implements.

"Oh my God..." Ripley whispered, looking on in numb horror as she crouched down in front of the window. She and the rest of the crew observed Ash approaching Kane's creature covered face with a pair of large surgical tongs.

"All right, I'm going to make an incision here... I'll try to remove one of the digitals from-" Ash explained out loud, but a confused Dallas interrupted him as he did so.

"You're gonna do what?"

Ash looked at Dallas briefly. "Finger. I'm gonna try and get his finger off. Just a minute." Ash explained. He grasped the leg of the creature, attempting to get a bite on the chosen appendage and use Kane's cheek as a fulcrum, and as he began to try and remove it, both he and Dallas noticed that the hair and skin of Kane had risen with it.

"No that's not - it's tearing his scalp!" Dallas pointed out; Ash stopped immediately as the creature's tail tightened around Kane's neck.

"I know!" he responded testily, placing the tongs down. "The appendages appear to have chemically bonded with his skin…" he added, having in the next instant achieved a complete calm.

"It's not coming off without tearing his face off with it," Dallas grimly concluded, as the creature was now securely fastened.

"We'll have to take a look at him inside... right" Ash decided, going over in the next instant to the Autodoc and preparing it for Kane's body.

"How come they don't freeze him?" Parker asks to all who continued to watch the grim spectacle.

"How come you guys don't freeze him?!" he yelled towards Ash and Dallas, who ignore his suggestion as Kane's body, including the creature, was loaded into the small chamber. The lights of medical are dimmed as the chamber's glass door closed.

"All right, you can take your mask off." Ash states looking towards Dallas as the CAT scanners go to work running up and down Kane's body. As the scan images pop up on the screens in front of Dallas and Ash, the images made the two officers ponder the creature's purpose.

"What's it got down his throat?" Dallas asks staring at the tube-shaped object belonging to the creature now penetrating Kane's body through his mouth.

"I would suggest it's feeding him oxygen," Ash replied in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, showing off his expertise.

"Paralyzes him, puts him in a coma, and then keeps him alive... now what the hell is that?" Dallas pieces together, unsure why the creature would go to all the trouble of attacking someone, but not killing them.

"Well, we gotta get it off him..." Dallas states, but was interrupted by Ash.

"Just a minute, just a minute... I mean let's not be too hasty. We don't know anything about..._it_. Now, we're assuming it's feeding him oxygen - now if we remove it... it could kill him." Ash looked at Dallas grimly for a decision.

"I'm willing to take that chance... let's cut it off him now-"

"You'll take responsibility?" Ash queried with some measure of disbelief, not glancing once at the captain.

"Yes, yes, I'll take responsibility; now get him out of there," Dallas ordered, placing his mask back on as Ash removed Kane from the chamber and prepared his surgical tools.

They had decided then to cut it off, and Ash had prepared an ultrasonic scalpel, a device that used focused sound waves at ultrasonic frequencies to make ultraprecise incisions that were practically naked to the human eye, to cleanly slice the creature's grasping appendages.

"Okay, where do you want to do this?" Dallas asks, preparing a gauze pad while Ash blueprints his surgery.

"We'll make an incision, just below the knuckle there." Ash said, dragging a line across the creature's leg just below a joint where he was pointing.

"Right here?" Dallas asked placing the gauze near the incision site.

"Stand by." Ash warned as he placed the emitter closer to the slender leg, and then he pressed the trigger. In an instant, a yellow liquid spurted from the creature's wound, emitting a hissing sound when it hit the floor, and smoke had begun to pour heavily from the already-clotting wound.

"Good God!" Ash said removing the cutter from the creature, Dallas looked down in shock & horror as the liquid begins to melt through the floor at an alarming rate.

"That crap's gonna eat through the hull!" Dallas says as moved quickly towards the door leading towards the access ladder.

"That thing's gonna eat through the goddamn hull - come on!" he repeated as everyone but Lambert followed him.

"What's going on?" Brett asked as Mils and Parker chased after Dallas.

"This way!" he called as he dropped off a ladder onto B Deck.

"Here it is!" Mils said looking in awe at the site of the melted metallic ceiling as well as a now melted shoe toe on the floor.

"Next deck," Dallas ordered, seeing the corrosive material continue towards the inner hull. The crew dropped off the ladder onto C Deck, fanning out in all directions, Parker moved into a dark workshop area, and within a few seconds heard a hissing sound.

"There it is!" he pointed, looking up at the newly melted metal panels above, and as the others arrived, Ripley and Mils slid past him to get on the other side.

"Don't get under it, don't get under it!" Parker yelled with concern. Mils and Ripley stepped back as the crew formed a column around the hole, which appeared smaller than the prior two; Dallas prepared his smock to maybe absorb the liquid. Mils noticed a reduction in the acidic content with each respective drop.

"Look!"

"Looks like it's stopping!" Ripley noticed too, as Parker traded places with Brett.

"Take a look at this, man," Parker urged.

"Yeah!"

"Brett, give me- What do you got a pen there? Give it to me quick," Dallas ordered, holding his hand for Brett's pen. The engineer took some time to produce the pen, still dazed from the whole situation.

"Come on! Come on!" Dallas ordered as Brett finally handed the pen over, raising it up into the melted hole, just as a few melted clumps of metal fell onto the floor.

"Don't get any on your arm," Brett advised, but after a few seconds Dallas removed the pen with the end of it smoking, but otherwise undamaged.

"It stopped…" Dallas whispered with a breath of relief and awe. "I haven't seen anything like that except, uh molecular acid..." Dallas concluded.

"I've seen the strongest acids work, but this goes way beyond all that. Hate to know what it would be like to get that shit on ya," Mils said, grimacing at the melting pen and the thought of what such a corrosive compound would do to human flesh.

"It must be using it for blood." Brett suggested.

"It's got a wonderful defense mechanism. You don't dare kill it," Parker opined.

"Yeah, how we gonna get it off him now?" Mils asked.

"And, what about Kane?" Ripley intervened as well. Both questions went unanswered by Dallas

"Here's your pen back..." he said, handing the pen back to Brett, who looked at the slightly-melted clicker end with wonder as to what he was supposed to do with ut from that moment forward.

"What do we do now Dallas?" Mils said, holding his hands on his hips.

"Let's see if Kane's condition has changed, then we'll go from there," Dallas stated as he led the crew back up the ladder to medical.

….

Ash stared at the Autodoc scanner images of Kane's body, and with frustration ripped his mask off, perhaps agitated by the failed attempt at trying to remove the creature. Lambert was still standing at the doorway, staring at Kane's unmoving form.

"Did any of that stuff get on him?" she asked, Ash looked back at her, perhaps slightly surprised at her presence.

"Um… No, it didn't."

"It stopped dripping?"

"Yes… seems to have," Ash replied .

"Well...there has to be some way to get this off his face." Lambert said nervously walking into medical.

"Hmm?" Ash honestly asks looking over.

"There has to be a way to get this off his face," Lambert stresses, her voice rising slightly in volume.

"Yes, well... I don't think we ought to try that again. It didn't work out to well," Ash sighed out as Lambert looked down, defeated.

"Well I better get some intravenous feeding going, so far we don't know how much it's absorbed from his system..." Ash contemplated, pressing a few keys on the surgical chamber. He walked over to the head of Kane's bed, ready to move him back in to the tight space, and he instinctively looked at Lambert who still appeared shaken.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yeah..." she sighed unconvincingly as Kane was loaded back into the tight chamber. The rest of the crew emerged from the hallway, and Parker wasted no time in marching up next to Ash.

"What's going on here anyway?" he asked. "I mean… Is he gonna be alright?" Receiving no answer, he walked back to the others.

"Did any of this shit get on him?" Parker asked, walking over to Mils, who was examining Kane's body for any probable damage.

"Doesn't look like it," Mils answered, looking at the hole where the first drops of the acidic blood landed.

"Is he gonna live? Huh?" Brett asks as Mils approached Ripley.

"What's that... stain on his lungs?" Ripley asked.

Ash responded with a slightly annoyed tone, "I don't know Ripley..."

"Maybe it's like a disease, bacteria or something like that." Mils said.

"Well, whatever it is, it's blocking the scanner" Ash pointed out.

"What do we do now?" Brett asked.

"Hey what's going on here?" Parker added, confused by the lack of communication.

"Leave Kane to Ash, let's get back to work and get out of here," Dallas ordered as everyone reluctantly left the medical bay.

"Yeah, I'll help you guys out!" Mils followed the two engineers to C Deck.

….

Mils, Parker and Brett worked on the various remaining engineering repairs still needed, Mils working on cleaning the engine ducts with a power washer while Parker and Brett worked on 12 module of the engine cells.

Brett was soldering a portion of the module, with Parker testing the power on the remaining undamaged sections.

"Okay, try it." Brett said as Parker returned to a nearby console, and then he typed a few commands in, causing the module to make a pained noise of mechanical failure.

"I'm sorry, my friend, you don't have anything..." Parker commented.

"Damn it, thought for sure that was it..."

"Well let's bring our good luck charm over here, maybe that'll help... hey Mils?!" Parker yelled over towards Mils who had just exited the duct, his task now complete. With his jumpsuit wrapped around his waist and his _Nostromo_ t-shirt covered in grime, he walked over wiping his face with an equally dirty washcloth.

"Yeah! What's the problem fellas?" Mils asked looking down at their handy work.

"Keep adjusting power, replacing pieces, and still nothing..." Brett reported glumly.

"I keep rebooting them and still nothing... figured we'd get a third mind in here," Parker said, picking up his beer.

"Welp, I could offer my advice, but it's gonna cost ya!"

"Ahh come on man, cut us some slack... we've already got your girlfriend riding us."

"She's not my girlfriend, Parker. And you forgot to connect the main traction cable after you soldered the module. The console doesn't know it's intact, so it just turns the module off automatically... thank you very much." Mils said triumphantly while grabbing an unopened beer.

"Jesus, no wonder we took so long Brett, you big dummy! What engineering school did you go to?"

"Same as you man!" Brett retorted as Mils just laughed silently to himself.

"What's happening down there?" Ripley asked from a nearby comm panel.

"Ohh Jesus Christ!" Parker said out loud, adding sotto voce, "My johnson's what's happening right now." He leaned down to the speaker, thumbing the switch and answering softly with a fully sarcastic retort. "A lot of real hard work. Haaarrrd work, Ripley."

"Yeah, I can hear it," her voice came back immediately.

Parker looked back at his crewmates and chuckled, then he clicked the comm button again. "You oughta try it sometime, sweetheart."

"Parker, I've got the toughest job on this ship. I gotta listen to all your numbers," Ripley struck back, and Parker, Brett and Mils all laugh at her clearly developed snark. Maybe they were surprised, or maybe they were just relieved to have some more relaxed banter.

"Will you get off my back, please?" Parker responded with a faux politeness to his tone.

"Ohh you poor baby, I will once 12 module is fixed." Ripley came back all sweetness and light and fluffy kinds of that which was called 'not giving a fuck'.

"It will be soon, Rip. Promise," Mils replied, stopping Parker from doing so. Parker glared at him for a second before chuckling, and he released his pressure on the comm switch.

"Man, I feel like I've been in this place a month." Brett remarked, connecting the terminal.

"We shouldn't have landed in this place in the first place..." Parker added, knowing his comment had naught to do with his usual run of complaining, nor with unfair job practices, nor any bonus shares. There was fear here, on this planetoid, and Parker could feel it.

"Shouldn't have landed on this damn ball, I know that."

"Yeah well the sooner we patch this thing up and get out of here, the sooner we can get home. This place gives me the creeps," Parker stated, typing a few commands into the console as the module slowly and triumphantly came to life.

"Just thank God you didn't have to go out there, it was something else," Mils said taking a sip of his beer.

"Yeah, no shit?" Brett asked.

"No shit," Mils confirmed. "Well, ducts are clean, Four Panel is fixed and repressurized, 12 module is up, so that means we can relax a little. I'm gonna grab forty winks, then help Ripley and Lambert with the bridge repairs. You guys need anything, well, figure it out. You're smart!" Mils said with a wink as he headed towards the access ladder.

…..…..

Ash was looking with interest and wonder at the screens in front of him, showing the internal state of Kane. He looked over at his microscope, and as he moved back to relax he was startled by Ripley who popped out of nowhere.

"That's amazing! What is it?" she said startling him lightly.

"I'd say it's, um… well, I don't know yet." Ash said, pressing a button to turn the screens off, then he stood up to stretch, turning towards her. "Did you want something?"

"Yes I uh...I'd like to have a little talk. How's uh... how's Kane?" Ripley asked back.

"He's holding, no changes." Ash reported.

"And uh, our guest?"

"Well..." Ash struggled.

"Hmm?"

"Well as I said, I'm still collating actually... but, um, I have confirmed that he's got an outer layer of protein polysaccharides. He has a funny habit of...shedding his cells and replacing them with polarized silicon, which gives him a prolonged resistance to adverse environmental conditions. Is that enough for you?" Ash asked, jotting down notes as he spoke.

"That's plenty, what does it mean?" Ripley asked looking into the microscope, and Ash stopped her in annoyance.

"Please don't do that. Thank you."

"I'm sorry..." she replied, though she knew there was something fishy about everything so far, and she didn't feel the least bit sorry.

"Well, it's an interesting combination of elements, making him a...tough little son of a bitch." Ash stated, dumbing down the findings for Ripley.

"And you let him in..." she accused.

"I was obeying a direct order, remember?" Ash looked at her expectantly, willing her to come to the point.

"Ash, when Dallas and Kane are off the ship. _I'm_ senior officer." Ripley stated as if putting the pieces together for the science officer.

"Oh yes, I forgot..." Ash said, scratching his head.

"You also forgot the science division's basic quarantine law." Ripley further challenged him.

"No, that I didn't forget," Ash stated plainly.

"Oh, I see, you just broke it?"

"Look what would you have done with Kane? Hmm?" Ash was getting more annoyed with every suggestive comment from Ripley, and so he tried to excuse himself. "You knew his only chance of survival was to get him in here." .

"Unfortunately by...uh, breaking quarantine, you risked everybody's life..." Ripley quickly retaliated. She was thinking about her childhood, the XMB virus outbreak in Luna had killed more than a thousand people back then. It was due to a bad decision by a medical officer who misdiagnosed the disease and the zero patient was not quarantined, but instead placed in the public recovery area with dozens of other patients. Before they realized it wasn't a common cold, twenty people had bled out from every single pore on their bodies in a fashion similar to Ebola.

Ripley would be damned if she were to let something like that happen again, especially here on the _Nostromo_.

"Maybe, I should've let him outside," Ash retorted. "Maybe I've jeopardized the rest of us, but it was a risk I was willing to take."

"That's a pretty big risk for a Science Officer; it's, uh, not exactly out of the manual, is it?" Ripley was confused; Ash had been very, very strict in quoting the manual when mentioning the loss of salary if they did not investigate the signal. Now, now he didn't seem to care at all.

"Ripley, what if it was someone else? Hmm? What if it was... say Mils? What would have happened then?" Ash said with cold beady eyes, silencing Ripley and making her clench her jaw. Ash was suggesting she would've acted differently if it was Mils with a creature on his face. She wouldn't admit it, but the words said by Ash had stung, maybe because they were true.

"I do take my responsibilities as seriously as you, you know. You do your job, and let me do mine, yes?" he finished as Ripley replaced a pair of pliers she was holding and walked out in a slightly aggravated huff. When she left, Ash took a sip of his milk and removed his gloves, tossing them away as he left the medical area himself.

…

Ripley was still slightly on edge from her conversation with Ash - he had made it personal by bringing up Mils, maybe to get her to mind her own business, or just to leave him alone. Ripley knew one thing though - Ash just rubbed her the wrong way. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew she didn't exactly trust Ash, not the same way she trusted Helwig.

She entered the mess hall, and immediately dialed up a cup of coffee to calm her nerves yet heighten her senses. She turned around from the coffee machine and saw a scene which made her smile wholeheartedly. Mils was taking a nap on his back in one of the secluded lounge areas, with a sports magazine covering his face and Jones also napping on his torso, gently raising and lowering with every breath Mils took.

She silently approached the sleeping duo, taking a seat nearby. Just enjoying the peace and quiet, her ears just keying in on Mils strong heartbeat, she saw that the timer he had set was about to go off, so she felt it only right to give him a special wake up call.

"Shh, Jonesy... it's okay." Ripley says picking the cat up gently setting him aside. She put her hands near Mils' sides, and when the alarm went off she began to tickle him. This sudden attack of the alarm on his ears and Ripley's tickling caused him to jump out of his trance.

"What the fuck?! Jesus!" Mils yelled falling off the seat, Ripley pulls her hands back, Mils looked up at her with mock anger.

"Sorry! Sorry, I couldn't resist..." she laughed.

"I'm sure you couldn't... can you at least help me up?" Mils smiled, holding his hand up, which Ripley grasped and used all her strength to pull Mils up. They almost collided before she realized that she'd either pulled too hard or braced herself too well, but all further thought of equal and opposite reaction was cancelled when Mils placed his hand on the small of her back. The proximity of their faces would have been common for a married couple, but for them it was a very interesting predicament.

The two stood there staring at each other, like lovesick teenagers, but before anything could come of it Ash interrupted them over the comm panel.

"Ripley?" he asked, Ripley with a curse headed over to thumb the switch.

"What is it, Ash?" she says now upset at the ostensible science officer for two things.

"Can you come to medical, it's urgent."

"Alright, have you contacted Dallas?"

"No."

"Well then, where is Dallas?"

"In the shuttle."

….

Inside the _Narcissus_, _Nostromo_'s lifeboat, Dallas had been relaxing for several moments, listening to some classical music, enjoying his own version of peace and quiet.

His reverie was interrupted by a buzzing sound from nearby, and he pressed a button on the comms console.

"Dallas." He called.

"I think you should have a look at Kane." Ash suggested through the speaker.

"Why?" The Captain said with disdain, he didn't like to be disturbed from his relax time.

"Something's happened." The Science Officer responded, without changing his serious voice tone.

"Serious?" Dallas opened his eyes and got up from the chair, thinking that something serious must have happened to the Executive Officer

"Interesting." Ash corrected, Dallas reluctantly turned his music off and contacted Ripley.

"Ripley, meet me in the infirmary right away."

"Mils and I are on our way there now."

….

When Mils, Dallas and Ripley arrived in the hallway outside the infirmary, Ash was waiting for them, staring at Kane who appeared to be blissfully asleep with no sign of the offending parasite on him. The parasite itself was nowhere to be found.

"What the hell?" Mils exclaimed.

"Ash? What happened?" Dallas asked.

"I don't know, I left for five minutes to consult with MUTHUR, maybe less, and then it was gone." Ash reported.

"Where is it?" Ripley asked.

"Well I don't know, I mean we ought to try and find it," Ash suggested.

"Yeah, let's check it," Dallas ordered as he and Mils stacked up next to the door, with Ash and Ripley close behind.

Dallas opened the door, and was first through, slowly moving through the doorway and checking immediately above him. Mils moved in behind him to approach Kane slowly, while Ash checked the upper perimeter of the observation window, with Ripley remaining in the doorway.

"Mils, Dallas, please be careful..." she said, her protective instincts for Mils kicking in. Dallas checked on Kane's pulse while Mils searched the area above him.

"He has a pulse... strong and steady." Dallas said.

"Good, nothing up here. No blood anywhere either... probably close by, though." Mils said, inadvertently sending a chill down everyone's spines.

"Fan out and find it," Dallas ordered as he walked away from the bed, Ripley entered the room, slowly approaching Kane's body and looking down at him with wonder at him being still in a comatose state.

"Don't understand it? He should've woken up by now," Mils pushed himself away from the bed, going over to help Ash find the creature. Ripley looks underneath the large bed, Dallas accidently knocks over a cabinet, startling everyone especially Ripley who gasps loudly, almost falling on the ground.

"Sorry." Dallas apologized.

"Ash, maybe get the door, don't wanna make it too easy for the little bastard." Mils said, and Ash nodded, walking over to the door and closing it quickly, glaring at Mils for insinuating that he was a moron. Morons did not become science officers, especially on small vessels such as this one.

Ash picked up a plastic tray to use as a shield with one hand while he sported a small electric prod with the other. Dallas had a similar device while Ripley investigated a dark corner near some of the monitors.

"No, not in the corner! Psst, have one of these." Ash tossed her another tray. He and Ripley traded places. "Just in case."

Mils used his height to check the very tops of some of the cabinets.

Ripley returned to Kane's side, noticing maybe a reaction to his surroundings. She felt someone or something, touch her shoulder.

"Kane? Andrew?" she asked, turning around only for the creature to drop onto her shoulder from above. Her screams got everyone's attention as she tried to remove the ungodly creature from her as she fell to ground, kicking it away. Mils slid over to her aid, shielding her from the arachnid like creature.

"Ellen?! You okay? Talk to me, you good?!" Mils asked unnerved. She nodded quickly, holding onto Mils tightly as Dallas and Ash hurried over to the creature, which now lay like a dead insect on the floor, offering a full-frontal view for the crew to see.

"I didn't see it. Was it in the overhead?" Ash asked.

"What? It was up there somewhere." Dallas asked, prod ready to strike.

"My God." Ash gasped, looking at the creature with a singular curiosity.

"Cover up the damn thing, will ya?" Dallas ordered.

"Yeah, before it starts bleeding acid again!" Mils added.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Ash exclaimed, he poked the creature lightly with his prod, and its legs twitched, causing everyone but Ash to jump back and prepare for action.

"It's alive!" Dallas exclaimed, ready to end the creature's existence as Mils shielded Ripley even more with his body, but Ash threw up a cautionary hand, lowering it only when the others relaxed.

"That's a reflex action. Well, we've gotta have a look at this!" Ash said, grabbing his plastic tray and placing the creature on it to carry it over to the examination table. Mils, Dallas and Ripley followed him reluctantly.

"Excuse me," Ash said as he immediately went to work, poking and prodding the body of the creature with various instruments.

"Seems dead enough," Ash concluded.

"Well good, let's get rid of it!" Ripley stressed.

"I second that motion," Mils added with disgust.

"Ripley, Mils... for God's sake, this is the first time we've encountered a species like this. It has to go back, all sorts of tests have to be made - " Ash answered as though addressing a group of morons.

"Ash, are you kidding? This thing bled acid!"

"Yeah, who knows what it's gonna do when it's dead?" Mils added supporting his friend.

"I think it's safe to assume it isn't a zombie. Dallas, it has to go back," Ash said, turning towards Dallas along with the other two crewmembers, waiting for an answer.

"Well I'd as soon as not... burn it at the stake, but you're the science officer, it's your decision, Ash." Dallas reluctantly stated as he got up to leave.

Ripley and Mils exchanged perplexed looks. "Dallas?" Ripley blurted in shock as he moved towards the doorway.

"Until then, Ash keep me informed of any developments on Kane, be ready to leave at a moment's notice," he ordered, walking out. Ripley and Mils pursued him as Mils looked back towards Ash.

"Try not to have too much fun with your... pet, eh?" Mils said with a smirk and a nod before joining Ripley and Dallas.

"I'll do my best," Ash says with a smirk as he grabbed a pair of gloves.

….

Mils caught up with Ripley and Dallas to find the former trying without success to persuade the latter.

"How come I've got to change my mind? The decision has been made!" Dallas said, walking away from Ripley quickly.

"I'm not trying to change your mind, Dallas. I just want you to listen. Will you listen-?" Ripley stated as she frustratedly hits a nearby button closing the far side door, blocking Dallas' way.

"Oh, now you've done it," Mils said catching up.

"Just tell me how can you leave that kind of decision to him?" Ripley was angry. To her, it seemed Ash was running the whole show while Dallas sat with his arms crossed. It was time he grew a pair and acted as Captain.

"Look! Ripley! I just run the ship, anything that has to do with the science division, the science officer has the final word; that was the way it was with Helwig, and that's how it's gonna be with Ash!" he excused himself.

"Helwig never broke quarantine law, Dallas! Something's not right here!" Mils claimed.

"How does that happen, Dallas?" Ripley asked.

"It happens, my dear friends, because that's what the company wants to happen!" Dallas said marching up.

"Since when is that standard procedure?" Ripley asked.

"Standard procedure is to do what the hell they tell you to do!" Dallas retorted.

"Ash is not the company, as far as we know," Ripley tried to reason - for her, the safety of the crew superseded any order, whether they came from the captain or the company.

"Yeah, he's just a grunt like us," Mils agreed.

"And he's not acting as a science officer - he's been reckless. That's not usual," Ripley continued.

"Ripley, the whole situation's not usual. He's following his instinct," Dallas defended the officer.

"And I'm following mine!"

"Good for you. What about you, Mils?" Dallas turned to the tactical officer.

"I'm not much for not asking questions," Mils points out.

"Have you shipped out with Ash before?" Ripley asked.

"Before? No, Helwig was my only science officer. That was until he was replaced two days before we left Thetis with Ash. You already know that," Dallas responded.

"Still seems out of nowhere if you ask me," Mils commented suspiciously.

"Well, I don't trust him," Ripley added.

"I don't trust anybody... now, what's happening with the repairs? How's it going?" Dallas asked, shifting the direction of the conversation.

Mils responded first. "Ducts are cleaned, modules are fixed... finally."

"They're pretty much finished now." Ripley added.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me so?!"

"Well, because they're some things left to do," Ripley answered.

"Like what?" Dallas asks tiredly.

"Well, we're blind on B and C decks, for starters..." Mils said.

"The reserve power systems blown still, and some of the auto thrust systems aren't working yet-" Ripley added, but was cut off by Dallas.

"Oh that's a bunch of horseshit; we can take off without that!" Dallas said walking away.

"Yeah we can! You think that's a good idea?" Ripley asked, still doubting the Captain's judgment.

"Look I just wanna get the hell outta here, alright?" Dallas concluded, angrily pressing a nearby button to let him through the now opened doorway.

"Can't say I blame him, I don't wanna spend another hour here!" Mils actually agreed on that.

"Would you take off though?"

"I don't know. Heavy risk, but the prize... we get to go home, we'll make it Rip, I promise!" Mils placed a kiss on Ripley's forehead, walking away towards the bridge as Ripley blushed like a ripe tomato.

….

The _Nostromo_'s thrusters came to life as the massive ship dispersed dust and rock from the surrounding area.

As it slowly lifted off, a warning light comes on in the engineering department.

"Dust in the intakes again. Number two's overheating." Brett reported.

"Spit on it for two minutes, would ya, for Christ sake!" Parker retorted.

"We're hot and we're getting hotter... Engine room, red clip status." Ripley stated with her concern only showing in her professional voice.

"It's alright... coolant system's kicking in!" Mils stated.

"One kilometer on ascension." Lambert reported.

"Okay Rip, auto-pilot is now off, your ship..."

"Copy, my ship! Engage artificial gravity." Ripley stated

"Engaged," Lambert said after pressing a few buttons.

"I'm altering the vector...now" Ripley continued, as the ship continued to rise slowly.

"Inhibit C.N.G." Dallas ordered.

"Struts retract," Ripley ordered as the large landing struts pulled themselves back into the ship.

"Struts retracted." Parker reported.

"Mass stress to fifth overload."

"Ease it back. She's great, beautiful" Dallas encouraged as the ship passed through the atmosphere, free from the planetoid.

"Through the multi-layer, we're back in space," Mils reported with a smile on his face.

"Walk in the park! We fix something, it stay fixed. Don't we, Brett baby?" Parker yelled happily, as everyone smiled, happy to end their time on the planetoid.

"Right!"

"Excellent job Rip," Mils said rubbing his friend's head from above.

"Next stop home!" Dallas announced.

….

The _Nostromo_ ascended until it reached orbit to approach the massive refinery they'd left floating. A few maneuvers later, the ship positioned itself just ahead of the refinery, and wireless commands from Mils through MUTHUR extended the towing arm, allowing the ship to align itself perfectly so that the docking clamps could receive and secure themselves to the ship . Having her cargo secured, the _Nostromo_ activated her FTL drives and resumed her long journey.

Most of the crew was sitting in the mess hall, taking a breather, discussing what to do with Kane now that they had left the Planetoid.

"What I think we should do is just freeze him" Parker commented. "I mean, if he's got a disease, why don't we just stop it where it is? He can always get to a doctor when we get back home."

"Right..."

"If he's got something, it might react differently when frozen... too many risks," Mils suggested.

"Right..."

"Whenever he says _anything_ you say "Right" Brett, you know that?" Ripley asked, annoyed.

"Right!"

"Parker what do you think? Your staff just follows you around and says "Right"! Just like a regular parrot." Ripley turned to the Chief Engineer.

"Yeah, shape up!" Parker replies jokingly. "What are you? Are you a parrot?"

"Ca-caw," Brett replied, smiling.

"Come on, knock it off! Kane's gonna have to go into quarantine, and that's it!" Dallas grumbled, getting up from his seat to join Lambert and Mils, the former who had just walked in with the travel calculations.

"Yes, and so will we!" Ripley reminded him.

"Great, get to play patient, when I'm not even sick!" Mils mumbled.

"Well, how about a little something to lower your spirits?" Lambert said, with sarcasm dripping from her tongue.

"Thrill me will you please?" Dallas replied, frustrated.

"Well, according to my calculations, based on time spent getting to and from the planet-"

"Just give me the short version, how far to Earth?" Dallas asked.

"10 Months." Lambert let it out, without sweetening.

"Oh God..." Ripley muttered.

"Fantastic..." Mils added.

"Great!" Brett finished as a nearby buzzer went off.

"Yes?" Ripley called.

"Dallas, I think you should come and see Kane," Ash stated over the speaker.

"Has his condition changed?" Dallas asked.

"It's simpler if you just come and see him."

Everyone looked at each other; Mils glanced at Ripley as if saying "Now what?"

"We're on our way," Ripley replied as everyone got up to head towards medical, Brett being the last one.

"Right!"

….

When the crew arrived at medical, they were surprised to see Kane up and awake, a little dazed, but still relieved to be conscious.

"Hey sleeping beauty!" Mils said, sitting next to Kane, slapping him lightly on the back.

"How are you doing?" Lambert asked as Parker handed him a cup of water.

"Thank you!"

"How you doin'?" Parker asked.

"Terrific. Next silly question" Kane says with a coughing laugh as Ash hands him another cup of water.

"Do you remember anything about the planet?" Dallas asked. Kane shook his head.

"No... remember Mils stopping me from doing something... and some horrible dream about smothering." Kane tried to remember, causing Ash to look at him peculiarly.

"And... anyway, where are we?" Kane asked looking around.

"Right here," Dallas said.

"We're on our way home!" Ripley announced him

"Yeah, back to the old freezerinos!" Brett said laughing, everyone joined him.

"Oh no... Could I have something to eat before we go back?" Kane requested

"Ohh, some plastic does sound good right about now..." Mils says slapping his friend on the back.

"Yeah, I need something myself..." Parker says holding a spoon in his mouth.

"Yeah, right. One more meal before bedtime. I'm buying," Dallas agreed, opening his arms wide.

"Hey, that's a break!" Parker admitted.

"Big time." Dallas stated as the crew happily headed towards the Mess Hall for a final meal before their trip back home finally resumed.


	6. Chapter 5: The Uninvited

Alien (1979) is owned by Disney/20th Century Fox.

Novelisation owned by Alan Dean Foster and Titan Books.

Original characters are owned by me.

Beta'd by AlphaLima1980

Gamma'd by DarthTenebrus

**Alien: Not Alone**

**Chapter 5: The Uninvited **

"Alright, look at this spread!" Mils cheered, looking at all the food on the mess hall table, as everyone settled down. He sat next to Ripley with Brett & Parker on Kane's right, as He noticed Dallas and Lambert flanking him on his left. Ash stoically sat across the table from Kane, keeping a keen and curious eye on Kane's still recovering form.

"That's right. Let's eat!" Dallas seconded, slapping Kane on his back.

"I am starving!" Kane stated as he sat down and immediately grabbed a can of cold beer.

"I could get use to this kinda eating!" Parker laughed.

"Right!" Brett echoed.

"For once I agree with you, Brett" Ripley smiled.

"We owe this meal to our Captain. Hear here!" Mils smirked, opening his arms wide towards Dallas.

"Here, here!" Kane agreed.

"Our Captain! Dallas, Dallas..." Parker sing songed.

"Any good flavors over there?" Lambert asked, looking at the various cans of beer in front of her.

"Well, we got cranberry, apple and cherry over there with a little mixture of both over yonder," Dallas answered her.

"I tell you this one time, Helwig man he just made this one mixture of three flavors," Parker said as Lambert laughed, "man I thought Brett was gonna die..."

"I almost did, man!" Brett responded.

"Jesus, what a mess that was!" Mils chuckled, remembering Helwig's culinary experiment and the cleanup afterwards.

"Yeah, boy, oh boy! I tell you the first thing that I'm gonna do when I get back, is to get some decent food!" Kane swore, grabbing another scoop of pasta.

"Here, here!" Mils agreed from across the table.

"Absolutely." Ripley added with a smile of her own.

"You know, I can dig it, man. Let me tell ya, I've eaten worse food than this, but then again I've tasted better, you know what I'm sayin' ?" Parker commented, looking down at the artificial-tasting, pale-looking food that the crew had gotten used to over the years. It was common for Company ships to have a computerized auto-chef installed onboard, and to the dismay of every crew, it usually produced nutritious selections, however unpalatable they seemed.

"Well it's not that bad…" Dallas responded, almost welcoming the banter.

"Well, you pound down the stuff like there's no tomorrow," Lambert pointed out as she dashed out her cigarette filter, wondering just how much longer she and others would have access to quality cigarettes, with the ongoing fight to outlaw tobacco back on Earth now ramping up to a fever pitch.

"Well, you know I'd rather be eatin' something else, but, uh...right now I'm thinkin' food." Parker came back, smirking with all the innuendo in the world exiting his mouth.

"Oh my God..." Lambert mouthed in disgust, looking at Mils and Ripley for support even as another part of her responded to the subtle offer of pleasure with the temptation of arousal.

"Hey, don't look at us, Lambert. You asked for it!" Mils chuckled as he took a sip of beer with Ripley laughing wholeheartedly.

"Well, you should know. You know what it's made of," Kane responded as he started to laugh.

"Man, I don't wanna talk about what it's made of," Parker retorted, grinning and shaking his head as he pointed down at his meal with his fork. "I'm eating this."

The next instant cut short Kane's mirth as pain erupted without notice through his chest, a sharp pain like a dagger, and he began to rise from his seat as his laughter turned then into coughing and gagging.

"What's the matter? The food ain't _that_ bad, baby!" Parker encouraged Kane as he leaned over closer to him.

"What's wrong, Kane?" Dallas asked with concern, patting his exec on the back.

"Bro, are you choking?" Mils asked, getting up from his seat with his eyes then fixed on Kane, slowly heading towards his side of the table. The officer arched his back in extreme discomfort and pain, causing almost everyone to close in on him with sympathy and alarm. Ash just stared curiously, unsure on whether to act or not.

"Kane! Kane, what's wrong?!" Dallas queried in fear for his XO as Kane gasped for air in behavior mimicking a cardiac arrest, a choking spell and a seizure as he leaned over the table.

"This is serious!" Ash exclaimed as he dashed around the table. In that moment Kane twisted over, gasping and groaning in panic as his back flopped onto the table like a fish, twisting and shaking violently as the pain in his chest conquered his mind and took over his entire body.

"Jesus Christ! Kane! Brett, help me hold his legs! _Brett, get over here!_" Mils shouted as he tried to hold his groaning friend's lower half from knocking someone out.

"Hold him! Hold him down!" Ash yelled, handing Parker a spoon to try and force it between his jaws to keep him from biting off his tongue, or to gag Kane into releasing the contents of his seemingly poisoned entrails. "Try and get this - get it into his mouth!" Ash repeated, as Kane's groans very quickly turned into screams of pain and anguish.

"I'm trying!" Parker shouted as the crew tried uselessly to help their comrade. With one final agonized scream, his chest distended, the skin and fabric stretching taut as _something_ tried to piston its way out, a spurt of blood erupting from his chest and soaking through his shirt with the force of a gunshot. The sight made everyone jump backwards, with Lambert shrieking as everyone looked on in horror, shock and disbelief while, for a moment, Kane finally lay still.

"Fucking Christ!" Mils exclaimed from far away as whatever was inside Kane then resumed its efforts, causing him to twist and convulse more furiously in a painful trance, his limbs flailing at a frantic pace as Mils and Brett fought to stop him from further hurting himself.

Then after an eternity of terrified struggle and agonized grunting, an ungodly thing happened, and the thing within Kane tore its way out, bursting through his chest with a metallic, high-pitched screech of life, as Kane replied with his own rattle of breathless death. The blood of Kane's gaping chest wound sprayed everywhere, coating the walls, the table and the light fixture above, and the ceiling liberally in gore. A thick jet of crimson fluid drenched Lambert in particular and caused her to slip and fall on her posterior as she screamed longer and louder than ever. It occurred to her in her terror that she might have been shielded from the worst of it if Ash hadn't rushed out of the way so quickly.

Mils, despite being on the far side of Kane's body, was also covered in Kane's bodily fluids, causing everyone to gasp in shock and horror.

"Oh fuck!" Mils yelled.

"My God!" Dallas shouted.

"Ohh…" Ripley moaned.

"Oh my god! OH MY GOD!" Lambert screamed, looking down at her arms and hands as their appearance resembled a surgeon's hands, fresh from the operating room. The crew looked on in shock and disgust as a truly alien creature uncoiled itself from Kane's open chest as his body twitched the last shreds of life away.

The alien itself was small, its eyeless head a domed shape, with gleaming metallic, razor-sharp teeth. Small holes next to pulsing tubes on either side of its head seemed to serve as ears, and below there grew two rudimentary stubs that might have suggested the later formation of arms. Thick yellowish skin, glistening with gore and perhaps its own bodily secretions, covered its exterior. Though the thing was eyeless, it seemed to look intently around in near contempt at the group of humans before it.

Parker and Mils grabbed the nearest knives from the table, ready to tear the beast before them to ribbons.

"Keep away from it!" Parker yelled ready to strike.

"No, no - don't touch it! Don't touch it!" Ash exclaimed, holding his hands out to stop the pair from dispensing justice. The crew, as one, glared at Ash before they realized that attacking the creature then and there might do them more harm than good.

The alien let out a loud noise, an unnatural blend of a grunt and a loud, metallic-sounding screech, the group to a single man or woman shivering in disturbed response, and before anyone could think to restrain it, it bolted across the blood-smeared table with blinding speed and slithered out of sight down the hall. In a fury, Mils went to chase after it but was stopped by Ripley.

"No, don't, it's over! It's over, Andrew…." Ripley said silently, clutching unto his arm, turning back towards Kane's now limp body. The whole crew was numbed by the sudden event - Ash looked blankly at Kane's body, even as Dallas stared expressionlessly into space, with Brett sitting down nearby, trying to put as much space between him and the bloody scene as possible. Lambert looked up towards the ceiling, as she appeared to lapse into shock.

"Parker... you and, uh... Brett...uh, secure the area." Dallas ordered numbly, barely able to form words as he shifted away from the table. Mils leaned back against the wall, sliding down to the deck in shock and revulsion as Ripley held her stomach, sick at the sight of Kane's body.

"Ash..." Dallas called the silent science officer, still contemplating the gory scene. The man didn't respond so the Captain called again. Ash turned. "Ash! Take care of this mess and, uh, take care of K-Kane."

Ash nodded, struggling to find words.

"Uh...yes, Dallas, I'll need to do a full autopsy to, erm, ... to confirm the cause of death," Ash commented silently.

"Cause of death?" Parker asked inconsequently, pointing the obvious.

"I have to..." Ash said as a matter of fact. "Protocol dictates it.."

Ripley threw him a darting stare, thinking incredulously that of all the times to follow protocol, he had chosen this moment, this very moment to do so, after all the rule breaking he had so far done without apology.

"Jesus... God almighty." Mils groaned. Looking at himself, he was covered in blood, Kane's blood, now caking part of his face and arms. He looked up at Ripley who was fighting the urge to throw up, holding her stomach clenched over, her back turned away from Kane's still form. Lambert was still in shock, absent from the situation in hand.

"Lambert…" Mils said softly to Ripley, pointing with his eyes.

"What?" she asked.

"Lambert, she's in shock. We gotta get her out of here..." Mils informed her as he got up from the deck.

"I'll help you..." Ripley agreed. She and Mils walked around the table to try and remove Lambert from the scene.

"Hey Lambert. Lambert?" Ripley tried to get her attention, gently lifting her chin with her free hand.

"Lambert, we're gonna go get ya cleaned up, okay? Okay." Mils placed a gentle arm around her for support as he and Ripley walk away from the bloody mess. He then turned to the captain. "Dallas, I'll be back..."

The _Nostromo_'s Captain just quietly nodded, looking down at the floor.

Minutes later, the trio arrived at the crew quarters, and Ripley helped Lambert get into the shower.

"Okay, here we are... Go ahead and get cleaned up. I'll be down the hall, alright Lambert?" Mils said soothingly. She nodded in reply as Ripley helped her undress.

"I'll stay with her..." Ripley responded as the two women moved into the shower.

Mils took a look at himself in a nearby mirror. With half his face covered in drying blood, he didn't recognize himself. All he saw was Kane in his last moments of terror and torture from the monster that had hatched from within him. His thoughts kept drifting back to the mess hall, which resembled more of an abattoir in a slaughterhouse than a dining area. He cleaned his face in a sink, having to scrub several times with the blood having already begun to dry, and then he gave up halfway through and dried it with a clean towel. He left the now red stained cloth in a basket, and walked back towards the mess hall, thinking that perhaps direct confrontation of the issue and working through it would help him resolve his feelings about it, even though he knew he could never take his mind off of Kane's gruesome demise.

"Ash, what can I help with?" Mils asked as he entered.

"I'm going to go get a stretcher and a body bag. You can help me put him inside it," Ash said, walking away quickly.

Mils made eye contact with Dallas. "What do we do now Dallas? Dallas what do we do?" he repeated when Dallas didn't answer.

"We get..." the captain hesitated, "we get Kane out of here, and then um... find that thing, get it off the ship." Dallas sighed, his usual cool demeanor seeming to have been permanently compromised.

Ripley walked back from the hall. "Have they found anything?" she said, still staring at Kane's body.

"No, they haven't gotten back yet-" Dallas replied as Parker and Brett walked in armed with a wrench and hammer.

"In case we come across it - hey we're gonna get him outta here right? For Christ sakes!" Parker exclaimed in a softened voice as he gestured towards Kane's body still laying on the table, not daring to raise his voice out of respect for his deceased crewmate.

"Right," Brett added per usual, as Ash arrived with a stretcher and body bag.

"I'll get it ready," Ash stated, putting on a pair of surgical gloves and then placing the body bag onto the stretcher on the floor.

"Mils, give me a hand here?" Dallas ordered as he put a pair of gloves on himself and then he put his hands under Kane's shoulders, while Mils joined him near Kane's legs. With a grimace and a grunt they lifted the body of their fallen comrade off the table, down into the body bag. Ash zipped the body bag closed as he and Mils lifted the stretcher up and transported Kane's corpse towards Medical for Ash to determine a formal cause of death.

"Brett, Parker, give me a hand, we gotta get this cleaned up," Dallas enjoined his crewmates in the gruesome task ahead. "Ripley?" When she didn't answer he looked to her. She was distracted, unfocussed, doubtlessly by the continuing trauma of seeing the creature birth itself out of Kane's chest. Seeing the blood yet uncleaned from the table, the walls and everywhere else didn't help with breaking her morbid reverie.

"Ripley!" he repeated more firmly, which snapped her out of her traumatic loop and back to the present. She looked at him now, her eyes filled with flame. He needed her clear and sharp now, so he went for a firm, yet soothing tone of voice. "Once Lambert's up for it, we're gonna check around the area for it, see if we have any luck. Okay?" Dallas informed her. Ripley nodded silently, turning around to check on Lambert.

She headed down the hallway, double checking on Lambert, and she crossed eyes with the young navigator as she half-walked, half-stumbled out of the bathroom, wiping her face dry. She had put her white coveralls back on, and an oversized, green _Nostromo_ jacket draped over her shoulders, almost acting like a security blanket.

"We should've listened to you..." she said quietly. Ripley didn't respond, she just silently guided Lambert back towards the Mess Hall. She pitied poor Lambert at that moment, fearing for the younger woman's sanity if worse were to come.

….

The crew had cleaned the table but they could still smell the blood, mixed with bleach. Dallas wanted the crew do a quick perimeter search for the tiny killer before anything else.

"Dallas... Dallas!" Brett called from around the corner as he and Parker had just finished their search.

"Yeah?" Dallas answered, moving towards Brett with Lambert in tow.

"Anything?"

"No...You?"

"Nothing," Mils said, walking up with Ripley.

"Well, Lambert and I will check the bridge, I want you four to check the rest of A deck, come to the Mess Hall when you're done." Dallas ordered.

He felt a little better, he had noticed, having focused his attention on organizing the search and cleanup efforts, and some of the earlier numbness and horror from Kane's death had been significantly reduced. He'd lost people before, so he knew how it felt, but never like this. As soon as the air scrubbers filtered out the rest of the stench of bleach and Kane's blood, Dallas knew, he'd feel much better, though in his heart he worried that he might never feel one hundred percent again.

….

Lambert, Dallas and Ash entered the newly-sterilized mess hall. Dallas looked with pained memory at the now clean table while holding a massive pipe as a weapon, still somewhat numb from Kane's demise. Lambert glanced at it, following the captain's gaze, immediately deflecting her stare and shaking her arms and head to try and jolt some life into them, as well as hoping to clear her mind of the awful memory. Ash, however, having just returned from wrapping Kane's body in a protective shroud for burial, had no qualms about sitting down at the table where Kane had previously sat, placing his arms on the table and resisting the urge to drum a beat of boredom.

The central door opened and Parker, Brett, Ripley and Mils came in. Mils and Ripley stood near the door, resting on the doorframe, while Parker moved over to Lambert, trying to avoid observing the table. Brett took a seat on the edge of the bench, fidgeting anxiously as he struggled with what was on his mind.

"See anything?" Dallas asked.

"No, we didn't see shit." Mils shook his head, eventually resting it on the doorframe.

"It must've gone below..." Ripley suggested, and an eerie silence befell the crew.

Brett, not used to such tense silence, eagerly broke it. "Now look, goddammit, all that - all I know is what - what is it? Now Mr. Ash, you're the science man, you let the fucking thing on here to study it. Now you've studied it, what is it? I mean, how are we gonna deal with it?" he asks after slapping the table.

"I don't know Brett..." Ash answered quietly, resting his chin on his fists, seemingly at a loss at how to answer the question.

"What?" Parker asked, turning around in surprise.

"Ah, come on Ash, there's gotta be something you've found out..." Mils asked out loud, not believing the answer.

"Look, he was using him as a host, some kind of incubator... look whatever the hell it is, we gotta catch it and we've gotta eject it from the ship, right?" Dallas tried to guide the officer to create an answer.

"Sounds like a plan to me..." Mils muttered.

"Yes, and how precisely do you plan to do that?" Ash asked.

"We flush it out Ash, room by room, corner by corner..." Dallas said without hesitation.

"That'll take forever..." Ripley sighed, knowing that not only did they have to check all three decks of the Nostromo itself, but they had to consider the possibility, however remote, that the creature could find its way into the refinery they were hauling.

Dallas immediately admonished her. "You have an alternative?!"

The Warrant Officer was very imaginative sometimes. Quick problem solving was one of her good traits, and what the captain needed in that moment was a brainstorm.

"Hold on, our supplies are based on us spending a limited time out of hypersleep-" Ash pointed out, but was interrupted by Ripley.

The science officer was right, in that kind of ships, the crew remained awake only at the beginning and the end of the journey, Oxygen wasn't a problem, because filters recycled it but the food and drinking water was not the case. So, in order to save food and water only a limited amount was shipped. As long as they remained awake, the supplies would run out eventually.

"Well I don't think we're gonna go to the freezer's with that thing running loose, Ash." she stated, with various murmurings of agreement being said around her.

"Naw, look at what it did as Kane's mask for Christ sakes, we'd be sitting ducks!" Brett lamented.

"Someone could stay watch..." Mils suggested.

Parker had had enough. He slammed his spanner on the counter next to him, making everyone jump halfway out of their skins.

"Look!" he shouted. "While we're sitting around here shooting off our mouths, that thing is running around this ship! Now I don't know about you, but I-I, I'm scared. Now let's find a way of killing it!"

"We can't kill it, its body acids will melt _straight_ through the hull!" Lambert pointed out.

"Yeah, no telling if that's all it has to offer either!" Mils added.

"Well, we'll put on our pressure suits and blow all the air out of the ship - that'll kill it!" Parker responded. As an engineer, he was on a military frigate during the Torin Prime civil war. The ship had been hit by a missile and had caught fire, and the only way to extinguish the fire was venting the atmosphere so the crew put on their pressure suits and did it, but two or three hadn't been able to put their suits on in time and had been sucked out into space to die from explosive decompression. Parker imagined the alien getting sucked out of the ship and exploding, and he didn't feel nearly an ounce of pity for the creature as he had for those poor bastards.

"That is a terrific idea!" Lambert answered back with at least a measure of confidence.

"Well, whose idea was it to bring it aboard on the first place?! It wasn't my idea!" Parker shouted again as the crew began to argue.

"Alright, alright!"

"Come on, think!"

"Parker, shut up!"

"Just a minute!" Ash said slamming his hands on the table, somehow able to project his calm and unhurried voice over their collective bickering, and causing them to quiet themselves and listen intently. "Now I really hate to point this out, but it might be better off without oxygen. It's lived that way long enough."

The rest of the crew stopped and pondered for a minute - it made sense, but what the science officer had omitted and they failed to see was that the creature wasn't in a vacuum but rather in an hostile atmosphere, with a slightly lower pressure than Earth's.

"We have another problem; how do we find it?" Ripley stated.

"Why, what's up?" Mils asked.

"We're blind on B & C decks..."

"What?" Brett asked, turning around in confusion.

"All the screens are out down there," she explained.

"Great..."

"Well, what do we do when we find it?" Lambert asked everyone.

"We trap it somehow," Dallas answered.

"Hey, that's it! We trap it! I can put together a strong net or maybe even a cattle prod of some kind..." Brett offered with renewed interest, getting up from his position on the back of the bench.

"Oh God, why are we listening to this _idiot_?" Lambert spat, gesturing with disgust at Brett.

"Ohh come on, sounds pretty good to me!" Mils pointed out.

"Anybody else got a better idea?" Brett asked incredulously.

"Well hang on, hang on, how long would it take for you to do that?" Dallas asked hopefully, daring to invest himself in the idea of capturing Kane's killer.

"Oh, I don't know. Parker, what ya think? An hour? Twenty minutes?" Brett asked, turning to him.

"Well, wait a minute, huh? Lemme think, would ya, for Christ sake?! Twenty minutes to an hour!" Parker answered, shrugging his shoulders.

"I'll give them a hand..." Mils offered, stepping up.

"Alright you're on, do it," Dallas ordered as Parker, and Brett exited quickly. Mils taps Ripley on the shoulder, and she gave him a small smile as he followed them.

"20 minutes to an hour…. More like two or three with those two. At least Mils is with them," Dallas muttered.

"Right..." Ash echoed, mimicking Brett.

….

Parker, Brett and Mils worked as fast and as efficiently as they could, Mils stitching together a strong net using rope used in securing crates and containers as Parker and Brett pieced together several long metallic objects. Utilizing a various array of mechanical objects, they were able to create a pair of cattle prods.

However, before the search could begin, they all knew that there was one last task that needed doing, and that was to bury Kane.

The crew gathered in the bridge, all staring as Dallas's monitor showed them the airlock where Kane's body lay, wrapped in a protective shroud so that his body would remain relatively well-preserved beyond the cold and the vacuum of space.

Dallas pressed a button then, and a large mechanical slide was heard as the airlock's inner hatch closed.

"Inner hatch sealed. Anyone wanna say anything?" Dallas asked. No-one said a word, as the job wasn't done yet - the alien was still onboard the ship. Mils made the sign of the cross with his right hand as with a push of a button, Kane's body was blasted into space.

The crew then got up as one to return to the task of removing the alien.

...

The crew were all gathered around Brett as he gave a demonstration of the cattle prod.

"This here is just an ordinary prod, like a cattle prod - it's got a portable battery, it's insulated all the way here, all the way up to here," he described, using his hands to direct their attention. "Just make damn sure nobody puts their hand on the end of it." Brett added as he touched the tip to the ceiling, causing it to spark and startling several of them

"It shouldn't damage the little bastard, unless its skin is thinner than ours... but it will give him some incentive." Brett concluded, placing the prod on the table.

"What if it tries to run?" Ripley asks.

"That's where this comes in. This net here is stitched together real good, used two kinds of rope. It's heavy duty stuff, so unless the little fucker knows how to untie a bowline knot, I'd say it'll do the trick." Mils explained holding up the net, tossing it to Parker when he was done.

"Now we just have to find it..." Lambert pointed out, prompting Ash to chime in.

"I've taken care of that. I've designed this tracking device - you set it to search for a moving object like so," he demonstrated, pressing a few buttons on the device before him. "It hasn't got much of range, but when you get within a certain distance it'll start to give off a signal." Ash explains as he holds up a large metallic box, looking almost like a vacuum cleaner with a handle, a long metallic tube with a flared end, and a screen with a readout display.

"How close would we have to be for it to pick it up?" Mils asked.

"I'm not 100 percent sure, but at least 25 meters." Ash responded.

"What's it key off?" Ripley asked.

Ash explained, slight annoyance in his voice. "Micro changes in air density."

"Give me a demo," Dallas ordered as he picks up the tracker and turned it on. Ash waved his hand in front of the flared end of the tracker, which produced a buzzing Doppler sound at his hand's presence.

"See? Again?" Ash asked, waving his hand again as Dallas nodded.

"Got ya," Dallas nodded. Looking up at the others, he gave his orders. "Two teams. Ash, Lambert and I. Ripley you take Mils, Parker and Brett. Now anyone see this thing, you catch it in the net that Parker's holding on his lap - Parker, I don't want any heroics out of you, all right? Same goes for you, Mils," Dallas looked pointedly at the two with a raised eyebrow.

Ripley couldn't help but smirk as Mils and Parker exchange looks of confusion. "_Who, us?"_ she could practically hear each of them thinking.

"No promises Cap..." Mils smirked.

"Hey, I mean it, Mils."

"Alright, I hear ya, Parker?" Mils responded.

"Yeah, yeah..." Parker muttered.

"Catch it, put it in the airlock...get rid of it. Channels are open on all decks, I want you to communicate and keep in touch at all times, alright? Let's go." Dallas ordered as the crew dispersed into their teams, now tasked with finding the tiny murderer.

...

Ripley led the others through the lower levels of the ship, tracker in hand with Mils holding the cattle prod, with Parker armed with the net and Brett with a large flood light.

"Anything, yet Rip?" Mils queried, holding his prod tightly.

"No, nothing... not a thing," Ripley shook her head. As she turned a darkened corner, she noticed the lights being out right away.

"I thought you guys fixed 12 module?" Ripley asked as they slowly moved through the darkened corridor.

"We did. I don't understand it." Brett protested as Parker and he moved towards a nearby electrical panel.

"The circuits must've burned out..." Parker guessed.

"Or that little bastard chewed thru some wires..." Mils surmised, suggesting that the deadly creature had possibly laid waste to the hard wiring of that particular section.

"Better not have - we just got it fixed," Brett grumbled as Parker handed Mils the net.

"What do we got here?" Brett asked as he shone the light over towards the box.

"Damn it! Hold ya light over here, would ya?" Parker whispered tersely as Ripley continued searching for some form of movement with the tracking device, waving it slowly left and right as she went into a nearby room.

"I don't know if this is gonna work...if I could just put this...put this in here," Parker continued to mutter as Brett watched on.

"Hurry up Parker, I'm not much a fan of the dark, especially with that thing running around" Mils whispered apprehensively as he kept guard nearby. His mind filled with the image of those metallic sharp fangs.

"_I'm pretty sure it chewed its way out of Kane,_" he thought, making certain to check every little glimmer or trick of the light, hoping like hell that when they did spot the little bastard, that he'd know it wasn't a figment of an overworked imagination. He didn't want to shove the cattle prod into a power distribution node by mistake, or worse, up Parker's or Ripley's butt.

They'd make sure he never lived that one down.

"Right." Brett echoed yet again as his grip on the torch faltered by just a fraction.

"Oh damn it!" Parker cursed.

"Check the insulation," Brett suggested.

"Oh shit!" Parker swore again, frustrated as he stepped away from the circuit board, and surprisingly the lights slowly came to life, blinking on. The group took a breath of relief just as Ripley's tracker began to emit a tone. She raised a hand to halt the others and aimed the tracker, pointing it first towards the ladder leading to the upper level, but then slowly turning it towards a closed door as there the signal and the tone grew slightly stronger. She slowly waved them forward near it, stalking closer toward the hatch, ready to pounce on the alien at the slightest sign.

"Steady now!" Brett urged under his breath.

"Just be ready with that net Parker. Brett, you got that hammer handy?" Mils stage-whispered as he looked to Ripley for guidance.

"According to this it's within five meters," Ripley stated.

"Get ready, open the door," she ordered as Mils pressed a nearby button, causing the hatch to open.

"Micro-changes in air density my ass," Ripley cursed - the door hadn't activated the motion tracker as expected. She waved them forward again to enter a small storage compartment.

"Okay, it's within five meters..." she stated again.

"Jesus, it's definitely in here then," Mils indicated nervously, wondering whether the creature's instinct would be to attack on sight or to slink away as swiftly as possible.

"Be careful," Parker stressed as he looked around the dark room. One wall was lined with metallic orange lockers as well as spare pressure suits hanging nearby.

Mils accidently bumped into Parker.

"Hey man, don't creep on me with that thing!" Parker protested.

"Sorry bud!"

"You guys, stick together!" Ripley whispered firmly as she continued forward, the Doppler buzzing from the box in her hand getting louder and louder as she approached one of the lockers, then it began to fade intermittently.

"Don't fail me now," Ripley swore as she shook the tracker, and the fading buzz finally stabilized. "Andrew? Parker, Brett!" Ripley whispered urgently over her shoulder.

"What is it?" Brett queried.

"It's in this locker!" she indicated with the tracker.

"Where?" Parker asked, walking up with the other men, Mils holding the prod like a spear ready to impale the creature.

"Alright, I got it, I got it!" Ripley says as she and Brett spread out the net.

"Okay, Parker," Ripley commanded softly. "Open it when I say."

"Ready when you are, Rip," Mils nodded as he exhaled quickly, relaxing his muscles as he aimed his tube, ready to strike on her word.

"Easy..." Brett cautioned them.

After a few tense moments of silence, Ripley nodded to Parker, and his hand darted to open the locker. It wasn't the alien - rather, a hissing ball of orange fur reared back and then dashed out of the locker.

The cat dropped to the deck with a meow and scurried away. Mils hesitated to lunge forward at the sight of his feline friend, while Parker and Ripley cast the net over him, only to be hindered as Brett, noticing Jones, raised a corner of the net to allow him to flee.

"Wait don't let him go!" Ripley shouted urgently , but Brett stopped her.

"Jonesy!" Mils yelled.

"What the hell are you doing, man?" Parker yelled at Brett.

"It's the cat, man!" Brett protested, confused that they would actually capture their own mascot, relaxed as he was by Jones' presence. The group stared at him incredulously for a moment before laughing in disbelief.

"Hey, look now," Parker explained, "we had to bag it, man. Now we might pick it up on the tracker _again_."

"I'll...uhm..." Brett stammered.

"Well, go and get it, man!" Parker hurried him.

"I'll go with him, shouldn't be too hard to find," Mils volunteered, handing Parker the prod.

"Alright, you two go get him and we'll go on..." Ripley says as Mils and Brett walk away, leaving Ripley and Parker to just scoff and sigh the last few moments away.

"Sounds good, we'll meet you by the express overlay with that little shit. Come on, Brett," Mils said, patting Brett's back, as they commence their search for the missing cat.


	7. Chapter 6: The Darkness

Alien (1979) is owned by Disney/20th Century Fox.

Novelisation owned by Alan Dean Foster and Titan Books.

Original characters are owned by me.

Beta'd by AlphaLima1980

Gamma'd by DarthTenebrus

**Alien: Not Alone**

**Chapter 6: The Darkness**

Brett and Mils cautiously moved through the dark corridors of C-deck looking for Jones, who had dashed down the same corridor not a few moments beforehand.

"Brett, why'd we forget the flashlight again?" Mils asked.

"Don't know, Mils, just let's find the cat and get the hell outta here..." Brett responded.

"Right, we'll find him. I'd rather face that thing than face Rip if we return empty handed!" Mils said jokingly.

"Right... here kitty, kitty, kitty!" Brett called the little creature, looking around in some of the small compartments nearby.

"Jones! Jonesy? Where are ya buddy?" Mils yelled, a little nervous at the seemingly growing darkness. He moved into a workshop checking for something useful, and found an emergency flare, and if there was ever a situation that fell into the definition, it was where they found themselves. Brett rounded the corner into one of the large supply areas where the ship's cargo vehicles were stowed. The large six-wheel rovers lay inert in the cavernous room, amongst the yellowish light bathing the walls.

"Here kitty, kitty, kitty! This 'kitty' crap" Brett cursed as Mils followed him. "Jones? Jonesy? Jonesy?"

"Careful Brett, he gets scared easily… I just hope he doesn't stumble upon that thing!" Mils said, moving in front of Brett, holding the flare in his hands and occasionally twirling it.

"Meow" Brett mimicked the feline's call, causing Mils to turn around in interest, raising an eyebrow at his crewmate's attempted communication with Jones.

"Sorry," Brett excused himself as the pair kept walking, sweat condensing over their faces.

"Jonesy's probably lonely, so keep going!" Mils stresses as Brett continued meowing.

"Here Jonesy!" Brett says looking up at the metallic walls and shelves across the room.

"Think he's up there?" Mils pointed, mirroring his observation.

"God help us if he is, we'd have a cat stuck up a metallic harness." Brett tried to keep the situation light. Suddenly, they heard a meow nearby.

"Jonesy?" Mils called, looking up, fearful his feline friend had perched himself on a height he couldn't reach. The meow repeated, as the pair turn slowly towards a large engine nearby. They continued to hear the meowing, and Mils thought he saw a small furry head pop over the metallic casing. Mils nodded to Brett as he moved to the other side of the engine, and Brett grunted in response as he peered through the space between the engine and two seemingly large gas canisters. Mils jumped over to the other side, and saw Jones inspecting something inquisitively on top of one of the canisters; using the end of the flare he poked Jonesy in the posterior, causing the cat to meow loudly, as he jumped off his position with a watery splash, and once again was able to evade Brett, dashing off into another dark room.

"Damn it... Jones, he's gonna be put in the nearest cage… when I get my hands on him. Brett we can't let him get away again, alright?" Mils asked looking at the dark room Jones had just entered from afar.

Another thing fell near Brett, a leathery, wet pile of a substance that appeared to be latex or rubber. Brett saw the thing and picked it up with the tips of his fingers and grunted in disgust; Mils marched over at that point.

"Hey Mils? What'd ya think this is?" Brett asked, Mils raised an eyebrow after looking at the thing Brett was holding, it was like a plastic bag… or worst, it reminded Mils of an oversized used condom. A closer inspection revealed the tube-like shape, like a ringed hose.

"Looks like… I dunno, a piece of fuel hose, maintenance is a bitch. It must've broken. Have plenty of those around," Mils responded.

Brett extended the thing with both hands; they both saw it fit the shape of the creature they were hunting, one bulbous elongated head in one end, and a long pointed tail at the other, it was approximately 2 to 6 inches long.

"Skin?" he asked, looking at Mils worriedly, and the tall officer relayed a similar look.

"Snakes do that when they grow... I got a bad feeling that our guest might be bigger than before," Mils guessed, as the thought of a grown up alien walking around unrestricted made his heart beat a little faster. He shook his head. "No, snakes don't grow so much when they shed their skin..." he thought, but then rectified, "That thing isn't a snake."

"Shit... right..."

"Come on Brett, let's get Jones so we can get out of here!" Mils says preparing to move.

"Right... right..." Brett said as he tossed the alien's shed skin on the floor and followed Mils into the next room. When the pair entered it, Mils lit the flare with a grunt and hold it front of him, looking up at a large pillar-like structure as the flare cast an eerie red light in all directions.

It was one of the four of the Nostromo's landing struts, they retracted inside the ship's belly after being taken up by internal cranes. Mils saw the chains dangling from the dark ceiling.

Mils and Brett look at each other and nodded as the pair split up circling the room from both flanks.

"Here kitty! kitty, kitty..." Brett continued, more nervous than ever, as the chains loudly clanked into each other and water due to the condensation dripped onto the metallic floor loudly, almost as if it was raining inside the large room. Mils looked closely at the nearby metallic drums, checking for Jones.

Brett walked in beneath the landing gear, letting the water fall over him, and feeling sweaty, he took his hat off to drench his damp head in the soothing liquid.

"You taking your annual shower Brett?" Mils commented, looking over at his crewmate with a smirk.

"Sure, just needed to wake myself up a little…" Brett said putting his hat back on, Mils' flare began to dimmer and die slowly, he tossed the plastic stick of flame to the side with a silent curse; he then heard a meow from nearby.

High above them, unnoticed by the two men, there was a fourth occupant of the room, dangling from the chains in perfect physical stillness, with its black, hard chitinous skin keeping it blended in both the surroundings and the darkness.

"Hey Brett, I hear him...let's do this right this time... I think he's in here," Mils said as he waved Brett over towards one of the metallic cylinders nearby. Mils silently moves to the right of one of them as Brett spotted Jones cautiously coming out from his hidey hole. He crouched down trying to comfort the cat, as Mils stretched his lanky arm through a gap in the other side.

"Hey hey come on, Jonesy, come on baby, that's OK kitty... come on baby, there we go." Brett soothingly said as Mils almost reached the side of Jones' tail.

"That's it Brett, almost there..." Mils continued.

Without warning, Jones hissed, startling Brett and causing him to jerk to his feet in surprise. Jones had never hissed at any member of the crew, never.

"Hey, hey...I'm not gonna hurt you!" Brett stressed. Behind him, a long ridged tail with a razor sharp tip descended, followed by the fully grown alien. It had dropped from his chain linked perch with absolute stealth and silence. The alien's large domed head rose up with the tall lanky form, emitting a hissing sound, involuntarily from its pores, as a gelatinous liquid dripped from its body with every movement. Jones smartly backed away from Brett, right into Mils' hand; Jonesy didn't mind the touch of his friend's palm, but he looked back at what he had hissed at, and Brett realized it was behind him. Mils sighed happily, and Brett backed away slowly before daring to turn around.

He saw a massive beast, and he knew instinctively that it had once been the tiny vermiform creature that had erupted from Kane's chest. The single rational thought that the terrifying thing before him hadn't driven out of his head screamed that there was no way such a tiny thing could grow into this in only a matter of hours, when most lifeforms on Earth took years to reach such a size. Brett was paralyzed, froze in terror and shock by the horrendous creature before him. Taking advantage of its prey's stunned state, the alien slowly placed its tail between the man's legs, raising the scorpion tail-like tip till it reached the small gap between his shoulder blades. The alien grasped Brett's head with its boney hands, and gazed its enormous, eyeless head right in front of Brett's eyes.

Mils noticed Brett's silence, and retracted his arm away from Jones to see why Brett had grown so quiet all of a sudden, he looked in Brett's direction and was shocked as well.

"Oh my God!" Mils exclaimed silently as he pulled out his pocket knife, reluctantly getting himself ready to charge into the now giant beast holding Brett.

"Parker! Mils!" Brett begged, screaming in agony as the cruel, inhuman strength of the creature's hands manifested itself. Blood erupted from every orifice in Brett's head as the black digits and palms exerted an unbelievable force. Mils slowly moved to tackle the beast, but before he could act the alien did something unexpected. As it regarded Brett with an unknowable curiosity, transparent lips parted to reveal massive chrome-like teeth. The steel maw then opened slowly, impossibly wide, to reveal a second, smaller jaw with sharp fangs, which then parted of their own accord. The jaw shot out, smashing through Brett's hat and forehead while simultaneously piercing his back with tip of the tail. Brett screamed in intense pain, and as buckets of blood poured down his face, the beast lifted him from the floor and Brett tried unsuccessfully to loosen himself from the alien's grasp.

Mils moved fast, trying to help by diving and grabbing Brett's legs, but the alien was faster and dragged the still flailing Brett up high into the ventilation duct. Mils hits the ground with a thud as Brett's screams stopped painfully, Mils looked up helplessly, as water mixed with blood fell over his face. Jones watched the whole scene silently from nearby, his own face somehow slack from horror.

"Brett! Brett!" Mils yelled calling for his friend. Ripley and Parker rushed in in response to the screams of the two men; Parker discarded the net as the pair looked at Mils, sitting on his knees and shaking.

"Mils! Brett! Brett! What the hell happened?!" Parker asked, looking at Mils' shirt covered in washed out blood. The Engineer grabbed the silent Tactical officer by the shoulders and shook him while asking again "Where's Brett? Where's Brett?!".

"He's… He's gone... he's gone! It... It dropped from the chains..." Mils stuttered, still in shock at the thought of Brett's pain filled last moments.

"What?! What did you say Andrew?" Ripley said getting closer, trying to get Mils to look at her.

"Brrrrrreeeetttt!" Parker cried, emptying his lungs, not accepting his best friend had been killed, undeniable evidence was the droplets of blood still falling like rain on the trio, the warm liquid slipping from Mils hair, down the face into his mouth. The coppery taste of blood woke him from his trance. Parker dropped the electric prod in the pool of water-mixed blood that had formed on the deck.

….

Lambert, Ash and Dallas had finished their search of C deck, Lambert ruminating as she lit a cigarette while Dallas and Ash looked over the schematics.

"Alright Ash, C-Deck was a dead end... when Ripley's group gets back we tag team the rest of B." Dallas said narrowing down the locations the alien could hide as the Refinery was isolated from the _Nostromo_, and although it was connected to the ship by an umbilical, bulky airlocks sealed both ends of the corridor. Plus, the Refinery had its own "crew" of synthetic personnel; a complement of old Seegson androids patrolled the installation doing maintenance work. If anything strange happened or the creature was detected, the androids would report back to the ship.

"Of course, though I doubt the organism has left the ship yet, he might be searching for some form of nutrition. Either in the form of water… or food" Ash agreed, emphasizing on the word 'food'.

"Do you think it eats meat?" Lambert asked.

"I'm not sure, those teeth are..." Ash paused, looking for the right word but settling for another, "clearly designed for cutting and tearing through skin and muscle, so I would say it's plausible," Ash admitted. Dallas and Lambert remembered the piranha-like teeth and Kane's partially chewed ribs. The door opened and a clearly shaken Parker, Mils and Ripley stepped into the mess hall.

"Find anything?" Lambert coughed out as Mils leaned heavily on the far side wall. Ripley just placed her arms on the table, shaking her head lightly. Parker poured himself a cup of coffee quickly, taking a big sip of it right away.

"Did you find anything?" Dallas repeated Lambert's question, also taking notice of Brett's absence but before he asked, the navigator intervened.

"Where's Brett?" Lambert asked, looking around and immediately she was worried.

"Dallas… Brett…" Ripley began, but she choked up. Brett and Parker always had her on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but the quiet man never had bad intentions. He had a good sense of humor and always had a funny joke or anecdote to relieve the stress and boredom of a long trip. She agreed that he didn't deserve the gruesome death he received.

"He's gone, Dallas... Brett's gone." Mils finished Ripley's sentence, equally mournful at his friend's demise. Lambert let out a gasp covering her mouth to stifle it, Dallas looks at the group disbelieving that such a small creature could do such a thing, but he noticed the red stains on his crewmate's clothes. Ash just leaned against a cabinet, propping himself upon it, holding his head down in what would be interpreted as some form of mourning or prayer.

"What?! What the hell happened?" Dallas exclaimed, unnerved and in denial about another crewmate's casualty . "How did he –?"

"It took him…" Mils said from the darkness behind Ripley.

"The organism" Ash guessed, Parker finally breaks his silence after he takes a big sip of coffee.

"It dragged him to one of the air shafts, I couldn't do anything" Mils was devastated, looking down to the floor.

"Whatever it was... it was big and –" Parker intervened, his usual loud and opinionated voice gone soft from the horror of what he had witnessed. He and Ripley hadn't seen the creature itself at that time, but a foot-long creature couldn't drag a hundred seventy pound man all the way up there. On the way back to the mess hall Mils had described the creature.

"You're sure it took him into the air shaft?" Dallas asked, sweat soaked his hair and graying beard.

"Disappeared into one of the cooling ducts..." Ripley responded as Mils laid his head on his hand.

"No question. It's… it's using the airducts to move around..." Parker concluded, as Dallas lifts up the schematics to check the main airlock system.

"Could it want Brett alive?" Lambert asked, her eyes red with tears.

"What?" Ripley turned his attention towards her female counterpart.

"Could Brett be alive?" Lambert repeated, hopefully.

"No… I mean… I don't think so…" Ripley tried to articulate a positive answer, but Mils offered a more definitive one from behind.

"No, he's dead... I saw it with my own eyes." he says not removing his gaze from the floor.

"Well, this air shaft system may work to our advantage..." Dallas examined the blueprints and pointed, an idea having formed inside his head "Here, it leads up to and comes out in the main airlock. Alright, there's only one big opening on the way - we can cover that up and then we... drive it into the airlock and zap it to outer space."

"This sonavabitch is _huge_! I mean it's like a man, it's BIG!" Parker pointed out, the fear still evident in his voice. He did not shout then, not once.

"Dwarfs any of us... easily over eight feet tall maybe more... It'd grown fast, in only what? Two hours?" Mils said.

"Kane's son..." Ash coldly stated. Everyone gives him a look of disapproval at the remark.

"Watch it pal..." Mils said under his breath, as Ash was crossing into dangerous waters.

"Come on Ash, Science Department should be able to help us... what can we do to drive it?" Ripley asked in order to get the ball moving.

"Well, it has adapted remarkably well to our atmosphere considering its nutritional limitations. The only thing we don't know about is its temperature." Ash stated.

"Alright, what about temperature? What happens if we change it?" Ripley asked. Obviously the Science officer wasn't talking about turning off the heating.

"That's true. I mean, any sudden change in body temperature would be… painful. Most of the animals fear fire…" Ash let his statement take root on his co-workers minds.

"Yeah... Most of them" Mils disagreed. He was unsure if that thing classified as an animal.

"We must try at least, I mean most animals retreat from fire, Yes?" Ash turned to Dallas.

"Fire yeah. Parker, can you rig uh… three or four incinerator units?" Dallas asked, looking over his shoulder at the now quieter chief engineer.

"Give me about twenty minutes, I'll do it." Parker said nodding; the big question came from Lambert .

"Now the million dollar question is: Who goes into the vent?" she asks, not essentially suggesting people would volunteer for such a task, both Ripley and Dallas were ready to answer the call, but were stopped short by another voice... Mils'.

"I'll do it." He offered, walking up towards the table. Ripley immediately protested.

"Andrew! Mils, you..." She says as she ponders what words to choose to try and convince her friend away from was essentially a suicide mission.

"Mils, I should have first grabs at this thing... by rights I have to!" Dallas explained, as Captain he had the authority to delegate, but not this one, not at certain death. He had plenty of those back in the military, when he was a captain of the UAS Archangel during the war.

"No, this one's mine." Mils protested "I could've stopped Kane from getting any closer to those eggs, I could've killed that thing right when it came out of him! and I could've saved Brett too... I need to do this, for them!" Mils banged his clenched fists against the table. His icy gray eyes make contact with Dallas' clear blue ones; he turned around to make contact with Ripley's still shocked and worried brown orbs.

"Andrew..." she silently said, her heartbeat rumbled in her ears.

"Besides…" Mils added, trying to rationalize his obviously guilt driven outburst "I'm the rookie here on this ship, if something happens, at least the ship will still have a Captain." Mils was already stating that the chances of him coming back weren't good.

"Alright then, Mils... you'll drive it through the main ventilation shaft while Parker, Lambert and I watch the maintenance hatches to avoid it escaping. Ripley, you'll seal the hatches behind Mils. Ash… Ash?" Dallas imparted orders and called for the distracted Science officer's attention, the man turned "Ash, you'll be in charge of the Airlock, seal it when the creature is inside, then open the outer hatch and flush the bastard out. Let's do it people!"

….

Everyone got down to work and headed to different parts of the ship to prepare themselves for the planned course of action. Ripley and Mils however stayed in the mess hall for the time being.

"Why?" Ripley asked silently.

"Someone has to do it, might as well be me..." He said, with a resigned voice tone.

"No it hasn't. Dallas is the Captain, and for all intents and purposes I'm the next in Chain of command now! It have to be one of us, not you. You've been through enough." Ripley stated trying to comfort the man she has come to have feelings for.

Mils had all the signs of Survivor's guilt, a mental condition that occurs when a person believes they have done something wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others didn't, sufferers sometimes blame themselves for the deaths of others when in fact nothing could be done to avoid that. Ripley herself had suffered it after the XMB virus outbreak, and later when she handled that terrorist crisis aboard the shuttle _Erebus_.

"Ellen... if I was killed instead of Brett, or I had had that thing pop out of me... would you stop Kane from doing this out of duty to his fellow man? No, I was in that ship, I was below the same chains. It has to be me, plus I'll get to play hero for a little bit after all." Mils finished as Ripley sighed reluctant .

"Fine, but so help me if anything happens to you... I'm gonna find you and kick your ass myself!" Ripley said with a shaky voice, they both smirk, perhaps out of desperation as she exits the mess hall.

Mils decided to make a cup of coffee before his journey to the bowels of the ship start. He leaned on the edge of one of the counters, the adrenaline already building up to a point that he didn't even notice Lambert coming in, turning on a nearby radio, and sitting down nearby lighting up another cigarette.

"Mils? Mils!" She said getting his attention, she continued.

"You sure you want to do this? I mean it might be too cramped in the vents for you!" she points out.

"Well then it'll be real cramped for our friend... everything ready Lambert?" Mils reassured.

"Um, yes... I think so; Ripley and I were going down together, strength in numbers. She hasn't said a word since you volunteered..."

"She and I had a talk ..."

"Anything else happen?" Lambert asked.

"She threatened me." He pointed out casually.

"Anything… else?" she insisted.

Mils caught the subtle innuendo. "No, Lambert... Not yet anyway, maybe after this whole thing's over she and I can make things more formal... but not before. Especially with you lurking about, wanting it to happen..." he scolded her. The young navigator never hid her intentions, even if she wanted to. Mils was beginning to be bothered by the fact that she didn't give up.

"Hey, that's not fair! Look, you mean a lot to all of us, but you mean more to her... so don't die Mils, otherwise we'll all pay!" Lambert replied.

"I know Lambert... and I won't let that happen... promise. Anything else I should know?" he soothed her.

"Parker finished the incinerator units; there are fuel tanks everywhere, so you should be good on that! Dallas and Ripley are in the bridge, and Ash said you see him before you gather your stuff."

"Sounds like a plan, I'll see you soon Lambert" Mils said patting the young officer on the shoulder, even planting a kiss on the top of her head. She blushes from the interaction, though she knew it was a plutonic peck, which was still a peck though. He moved past Parker who sat down on a crate in one of the hallway intersections, more or less mentally preparing himself for the plan to be executed.

"You ready for this man?" he asked.

"Not really, but it doesn't matter now. does it?" Mils admitted with a shrug of his shoulders.

Mils headed towards the medical wing of the ship, entering through the doorway, and immediately noticed Ash who was working on his handheld terminal. He turned around to greet Mils.

"Mils, have a look around before you go, see if there's anything that might help. You never know, with the specimen being so... adaptable." Ash said cold as ever.

"Right, may not have another chance." Mils agreed as he grabbed a medical booster shot from the counter behind Ash, the parasite still remained on it.

"Haven't gotten rid of that thing yet?" Mils asked in almost disbelief. He thought the thing would be floating in interstellar space by now.

"Well, of course not, there's still quite the battery of tests to be done... I haven't even identified if this species is male or female. How the supposed eggs are produced." Ash said, trying to justify the creature's presence, even after what it had done to the crew so far.

"Sure... what about testing how it reacts to being flushed out of the ship?" Mils says picking up a flare before leaving the lab for the bridge. When he arrived, he was greeted by Dallas who nodded, with a grunt, offering him a cigarette.

"No, I'm good." Mils waved him away and moved up to the large desk where the incinerator and tracker lay, along with a maintenance jack he could use as a weapon in case the incinerator failed. Mils grabbed some nearby fuel tanks, as he placed a welding harness on to hold the fuel tanks. Ripley leaned on a chair, looking at her friend picking up the incinerator. Checking its fuel readout near the front, he loaded his first tank into the weapon, tightening the canister into place, keeping the fuel and spark disconnected for the time being. He also picked up a radio headset.

"Mils, you'll be running blind once you're in the primary air shaft, when that happens Lambert will give you instructions through her tracker. Good luck and God speed." Dallas said shaking Mils' hand tight.

"Thanks, let's hope this works..." Mils said walking into the hallway, looking at Ripley one more time, there was so many things he wanted to say to her, but now there was a bigger task at hand. He stepped out into the hallway leading to the nearest ladder, Ripley followed with great haste.

He entered one of the many foyer like rooms that housed the ladder separating the A deck from B deck. Ash was standing nearby, ready to assist Mils in beginning his descent.

"Mils? Andrew?" Ripley said walking up to Mils.

"Rip? Here to talk me out of it again?" Mils asked, but was caught off guard when Ripley hugged him tightly, clutching onto him, fearing this would be the last moment they would have, Mils held her back with his one free hand.

"Please come back Andrew, Please come back! I need you, so you better not die you big dumb hero! Promise me, Andrew Mils! You promise to come back alive!" Ripley begged, gripping the fabric of his shirt, after a few seconds of just holding each other.

"I promise Ellen... I'll come back". Mils said, as Ripley broke the hug, holding his face with her hands.

"I think it's time now, Mils." Ash intervened ending the emotive moment, Mils moved to the ladder.

"Right, anything else I should know Ash?" Mils asked, looking at the science officer.

"The security system has shut a number of doors, so you'll need to gather equipment en route. MUTHUR isn't really helping the situation, unfortunately." Ash reported.

"Okay, let's do this." Mils finally said. He grasped the top of the ladder, and began his descent.

"Good luck. I'm closing the hatch behind you." Ash said as he and Ripley looked down on Mils.

"Sure Ash, I'll see you on the other side." Mils said, moving down the ladder, with the door leading to the entrance closing. Mils hopped off the ladder and reported back to the crew.

"Alright, here we go folks... moving to B1 Hatch, you better be there Parker," Mils stated as he checked one of the trackers Ash had made prior, with nothing popping up right away. He moved straight ahead towards maintence hatch B1, and as he cut through a small supply office, his tracker began to pick up something there. The readout told him that something was moving in the adjacent hallway, and he prepared his incinerator, taking quick, silent breaths, but just as he prepared to pounce, the tracker reported negative contact.

He walked back into the large office next to the maintenance hatch and fired a quick spurt of flame behind him, to try and deter the beast from following him. He walked up to the control panel for the hatch, and made contact with Parker who stared at him through the glass window.

"Close it down, this plan is crazy, some kinda suicide..." He said holding his incinerator close.

"Well, it's the only plan we have Parker, it's a little late for us to change it now. Unless you have a better one?" Mils stated as he typed a few commands into the console and within a few seconds the hatch behind Parker closed.

"Yeah, yeah... take care of yourself," Parker said, exiting the room.

"You too, see ya soon..." Mils noticed his tracker again began to go haywire... he checked it and once more a faint contact appeared to be near, he waited a few seconds prepping his body for the idea of confrontation with such a lethal beast. Once Mils' tracker died down, he contacted Lambert.

"Lambert? You there?" He called, but it was Ripley who responded .

"We're right here Andrew, we're waiting on you... Lambert's tracking it now," She reported.

"Okay I'm on my way, see ya soon." He quietly responded and exited the room, swiftly moving back through the hallways, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the alien before him investigating one of the vents. Mils tensed up, but nonetheless he automatically went to the well of the incinerator spraying a burst of fire towards the beast which screeched in anger, and pain. The alien rushed towards the nearest ceiling vent and jumped through it like a cheetah.

"Fuck me! Too close!" Mils exclaimed, picking up speed and moving into the room next to Maintence Hatch B2. Lambert greeted him, with Ripley close behind her armed with an incinerator.

"Jesus you took your time. Shut off my side of the system, we're sitting ducks here!" Lambert stressed.

"Well, you ladies are safe now, just sit tight. It'll all be over soon." Mils says typing in commands into the console.

"Have you seen anything yet?" Ripley asked, worried to the bone.

"Yeah, one minor close encounter... I scared it off into a vent," Mils replied as the hatch behind the pair closed.

"Okay, we're good to go, come on Ripley!" Lambert stressed as she kept her eyes on the tracker in front of her.

Ripley placed a hand against the glass. "Come back to me, understand?" She told him.

"Understood Ma'am!" Mils mirrored the gesture, shadowing Ripley's hand with his own. She reluctantly pulled it away as Mils nodded with a wink.

"Okay, Dallas? Moving to your position now, Ripley and Lambert are on their way to secondary rendezvous," Mils reported as he looked at the vent next to him. He reluctantly moved into it, immediately taking notice of the cramped spaces.

"Hate to do this on a regular basis!" Mils argued

Mils moved into the massive server room, housing the multiple super computers that made running the _Nostromo_ a little easier for the crew.

"Okay, passing through the server room... then through the loading claw bay, right Dallas?" Mils asked.

"Yeah, pass through the bay to get to me."

"Copy, I'm on my way!" Mils said as he moved through the rows of super computers, up the stairwell and through the small hallway, as soon as he crossed the door and came face to face with a gruesome site: Laying against the railing was Brett's corpse, covered in blood. Mils looked in shock and disbelief, they were sure that he was moved elsewhere, into the vents.

"Oh my God! Brett..." Mils moved closer, looking with a grimace at Brett's bloody pierced cap and forehead, still pooling blood from the wound. Mils made the sign of the cross and closed Brett's eyes. He pressed a hand on Brett's shoulder.

"I'm sorry Brett, I'm so sorry, take it easy on those angels pal." Mils said, standing up and moving towards the third maintence hatch. He'd made the decision at that very moment to keep Brett's state to himself for now, maybe only bringing it up if Parker asked. He moved through the darkened hallway, noticing a liquid dropping from one of the ceiling vents, he looked down a the puddle of thick liquid, pressing his hand into it, he pulls it out looking at the gelatin like goo, he shook it off his hand with a curse, now more concerned at the creature's clear near strung presence. He entered into the B3 maintence hatch control room, nodding at Dallas.

"Good to see ya Mils, by rights it should've been me going in there!" he reminded Mils, as the young officer began to close the hatch.

"It was my choice Dallas. Let's get this done!" He replied as the hatch closes.

"Alright, everyone link up at the secondary rendezvous." Dallas ordered walking off.

"Okay, I'm through to the aft decks, Ash what now?" Mils asked

"Right. Find the primary air shaft system, and lead the creature down to the deck below. I can connect to the airlock systems from my terminal." Ash responded as Mils prepared to move, out of caution he sprayed a little flame in front of him and heard a scream of alien pain, along with the telltale signs of the Alien escaping into a vent. He jogged through the hallway, and into the room next to the primary airshaft. He opened up the airshaft entrance and climbed through.

"Alright boys and girls, I'm at the primary air shaft, wish me luck and cross your fingers!" Mils stressed as he entered the darkness of the tube.

….

From nearby in the secondary rendezvous point located near the shaft near hatch B4, the one Mils purposely left open, the crew minus Ash, who was in a separate location, were monitoring the airlock. Lambert used a modified tracker directly pointed at the airshaft to track Mils and the alien's movements. Dallas and Parker held incinerators nearby, with Ripley also armed, peering over Lambert's shoulder.

Mils noticed that his tracker was malfunctioning as he stood near a ladder leading to the lower levels of the shaft.

"Umm, Ash? Your tracker isn't reading anything..." he called.

"Well, you are in an airshaft, the changes in density might be too numerous to pick up." Ash clarified.

"Great, okay going down now," Mils said as he climbed down the ladder, dropping off onto the deck below.

"We're in position Mils, I'm just trying to get a reading on you! Just hold a second!" Lambert cautioned as Mils lit up a flare, tossing it ahead of him to try and light the way. He moved ahead slowly in the cramped space until he reached an intersection.

"Hold on a second... hold on, I think I got it. Yes, it's in there with you Mils," Lambert reported.

"I need more than that, Lambert. Where exactly?" Mils was getting more and more tense.

"Right around there, now you're gonna have to be careful," Lambert warned him.

"I hear ya!" Mils said.

"Okay, Mils I'm here, it's close..." Ripley repeated as Mils sprayed a burst of flame nearby to try and deter the beast. He moved straight ahead.

"Go straight Mils!" Lambert shouted on the mic, Mils lit another flare throwing it ahead, and he continued moving through the maze.

"Okay that's it! Left, then right, you got to be quick!"

"Oh God, it's definitely here, come on Andrew, come on. Be a man!" Mils talked to himself while he moved backwards through the vents.

"Move just, just get out!" Lambert screamed as she watched the second dot –the creature –pursue Mils'. Ripley looked back at Dallas and Parker nervously, fearing that even if they did leap into action, it would be too late.

Mils fired blindly behind him with the incinerator, suddenly the floor gave out below him, and he falls through an open ceiling vent.

"Oh shit!" Mils cursed and he goes silent for a few moments.

"Mils!" Dallas yelled into his radio, as Parker readied himself to move, gripping his incinerator.

"No, Oh no!" Lambert feared the worst, and Ripley refused to face reality.

"Andrew? Are you there?!" Ripley called desperately, after what seemed like an eternity, he responded.

"Yeah... yeah I'm okay, I'm alright. I just fell... I'm on C-Deck now. Moving to the airlock systems!" Mils reported, standing up with a grunt. In his daze, he even saw the alien charging at him and in response; he fired a controlled burst from the incinerator, though it turned out to be a mirage. He moved swiftly ahead, around the corner into the airlock control.

"Ash? I've connected you to the airlock system. Look! It's here... okay? It's up to you now, buddy! Don't fail us!"

"Copy that, I'm opening the airlock, but it'll take some time. I'd recommend finding someplace to hide." Ash advised, while Mils got down as low as possible away from the glass window, hiding under the desk. He saw the alien drop down nearby from a vent, and move around the corner through a door towards the airlock. Mils shadowed the beast the best he could.

"Airlock is primed, wait for it to enter the outer airlock chamber, and be ready to close it in." Ash stated, Mils moved through the same doorway after the alien .

"It's moving in the right direction..." Ash advised, as Mils hugs the wall closest to him. He waited for the alien to make its move, the beast looked around the white coverings of the airlock.

The airlock's outer doors opened with a hiss, inside, an amber light spun, MUTHUR warned:

"Warning, main airlock opened." The alien entered the chamber, attracted by the light, moving its head sideways in curiosity.

"It's in there Ash, I've got it!" Mils yelled, He sprinted up and pressed the button repetitively to close the outer door.

"Something very strange going on here!" Ash said.

"What's wrong Ash? Ash! It's not closing, the airlock isn't closing!" Mils called out loudly, and the alien turned around, attracted by the noise and ran out of the airlock in a hurry , Mils pointed his incinerator at the charging creature.

"Shit! AHHHHG!" Mils screamed , the creature knocked him down, and everything went black.

"MILS! ANDREW! NOO!" Ripley yelled.

"No!" Lambert repeated.

"Come on, we gotta get down there!" Parker promptly intervened, he took the incinerator and rushed to the stairs, leading the way, Dallas followed him.

"Let's move people, C-Deck now!" Dallas ordered.

"Mils… Mils?!" Ripley remained there, still calling her friend's name on the radio with no response as the rest of the crew rushed to his last known position.


	8. Chapter 7: A Hazardous Mission

Alien (1979) is owned by Disney/20th Century Fox.

Novelisation owned by Alan Dean Foster and Titan Books.

Original characters are owned by me.

Beta'd by AlphaLima1980

Gamma'd by DarthTenebrus

**Alien: Not Alone**

**Chapter 7: A Hazardous Mission**

Led by Dallas, the crew moved as fast as they could down to C-Deck, racing against time and fate as fast as they could manage as Lambert anxiously checked the tracker for any movement.

"Come on people, pick it up!" Dallas called over his shoulder before pressing his hand to his headset and keying the internal microphone. "Ash, meet us down on C-Deck. Be ready, we might have another body!"

Ripley was still in the second rendezvous position, still checking on Mils' silence as she waved her tracker wildly to and fro.

"Andrew? Andrew, come on, please! Respond!" Ripley cried into her radio. Within her heart, hope warred with despair, until she heard a sound, a pain-filled breath from Mils on the other end of the comm.

"Andrew? Mils? Shit!" Ripley yelled as she picked up the spare incinerator and sprinted down towards C-Deck.

….

Ash had already moved down to C-Deck, anxious to see if the alien was still around given the chance to study it in a somewhat natural habitat. He fast-walked through the corridors keeping a keen eye out for any signs of the organism. The airlock system had "glitched" - at least that was what he wanted to believe, and more importantly that was what he would tell the crew. He heard pained groaning from nearby and increased his pace. He turned with sincere caution towards the airlock's corridor, when he scanned the surroundings he spotted a few smears of gelatinous material.

"I must gather some samples of this for proper study..." He thought in his ever-mathematic brain.

His train of thought was interrupted by what sounded like pained, gasping breath from nearby, from the man who had volunteered to try and remove the alien from the ship. Ash stared at the unconscious form of Andrew Mils, the man the crew had assumed to have been killed by the alien. He just stared blindly at the tall man as he began to regain consciousness, barely able to keep his eyes open.

Once he did come around, Ash didn't help him, nor did he perform his "by the manual" duties of Science Officer, who was also the ship's medical practitioner and thus the first person to jump on healing a wounded crew member. At least, that was what they were supposed to do. If Helwig had been present, he would had brought Mils to medical immediately, but Ash hesitated, feeling something along the lines of frustration. Frustration at Mils' failure to remove the beast, Ash's shortcomings with airlock controls, or even at the fact Mils had attempted to harm the creature.

Mils looked up groggily as fresh blood dripped out both of his nostrils, most likely from the collision with the alien, who had blasted through Mils like a triceratops through a T-Rex. As he regained his vision, he saw Ash looking down at him.

"Ash? W-What…what happened?" Mils said, breathing shortly. Ash responded quickly, ready to get the interaction with the officer over with.

"It must've been a glitch in the system, nothing we could do. We'll maybe try something else..." Ash suggested as Mils' eyes rolled back in his head, and he plopped back down onto the deck unconscious. Dallas, Parker and Lambert rushed in at this point ready to burn the creature to bacon.

"Ash! Oh my God! Mils!" Dallas said rushing in immediately to check on his CTO.

"Any sign of that goddamn thing? Hey, why aren't you helping him, man?!" Parker asked looking from nearby.

"No, nothing... It must've left. I only just arrived a few moments earlier." Ash responded, unemotional and practically stoic.

"Did it do anything to him?" Lambert asked checking the tracker for any sign of movement as Dallas pressed two fingers to Mils'carotid artery.

"I doubt it, the organism most likely fled from the airlock as quickly as possible. Mils might have just been in the way."

"He has a pulse. Come on, Parker, we gotta get him outta here," Dallas said as they heard something running towards them. Parker pointed his incinerator towards the source of the noise, ready to fire. However, he backed off when he saw Ripley, breathing heavily having ran as fast as she could towards C-Deck.

"Jesus Christ, Ripley! You're gonna get fried if you're not careful!" Lambert admonished her as Parker angrily sighed. Ripley didn't respond right away, but just sighed some form of curse under her breath. She immediately gasped loudly at seeing Mils, crouching down next to him.

"Jesus Christ, Andrew! Dallas, what happened to him?" Ripley asked, checking Mils for any wounds besides his obvious nose injury.

"We think it charged through him to escape." Dallas said as he waved Parker over. "Parker? Give me a hand - we have to get him to Medical. Ash? Get the Autodoc ready please." Dallas ordered as he and Parker picked up Mils' barely conscious form. They placed his lanky arms around their necks as they swiftly, yet gently moved Mils to Medical.

"Lambert? Keep checking the tracker, we don't want any surprises along the way," he urged as the group collectively pointed their incinerators ahead of them. Ripley kept a glancing eye towards Mils' still incoherent form, his head bobbing around like a drunken sailor, or a recently KO'd boxer who had just gone one on one with Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson.

….

"Just this way. Place him over here, gently now," Ash said as he held his hands under Mils' head, laying him down onto the stiff but comfortable bed. Mils grunted in pain or most likely discomfort. Ash picked up a small scanner with a handheld tablet and passed it over Mils' body, checking for any interior injuries.

"Anything? Will ya check his chest? Don't wanna have another Kane on our hands." Parker asked nervous. Everyone was disturbed at the memory of the little beast emerging from the XO's chest.

"Parker!" Ripley scolded him as she crouched down to hold onto Mils' hand, trying to console him in his state; she wanted to do anything to ease his pain. In reality though, Mils wasn't aware of his surroundings. He had begun to stir, but was still unaware of his condition, like a patient entering into the post-op phase of recovery.

"Nothing to suggest he was assaulted by the organism, other than brief physical contact... I highly doubt that anything else occurred." Ash reported.

"How bad did it hurt him?" Lambert asks looking on from the far side of the room, still keeping a cautious eye on the tracker.

"Obviously he's suffered a fracture in his upper nasal cartilage, plus a bruise here on his right frontal eminence. However, I think that might have occurred prior to the encounter with the organism. He's also suffered some bruising on his ribs." Ash enumerated just as Mils began to awaken.

"Mils, you there? Alright now, ease up, cowboy." Dallas encouraged him, using an old term his father had used with him when he fell off their old horse.

"Andrew? Easy, take it easy… slowly, there." Ripley said as Mils sat up slowly, the blood from his nose now entering into his mouth. The now familiar copper taste of blood touching his taste buds seemed to snap him out of the trance he was in. Ripley crouched in front of Mils, trying to get him to focus on a familiar and friendly face. After a few blinks, he realized where he was, at least where he thought he was, but he definitely knew who he was staring at.

"Rip? Please tell me this isn't some weird dream," Mils stated groggily. Even with the humor in his voice barren, the sentiment was received well, causing the crew to respond with smirks and a few laughs. Dallas patted Mils on the back as Ash quickly moved to retrieve a cup of water and passed it to Mils.

"Please tell me this is a shot of Jack," Mils asked, already knowing the answer. He took a big gulp nonetheless.

"It is, heavily filtered though," Ash said sensing the humor, which was unique for him. Mils just chuckled and downed the water quickly.

"Mils, what happened down on C-Deck with the airlock?" Dallas turned the subject back to the business at hand.

"I don't know, it should've worked, the thing went right into the airlock. I hit the button as fast as I could, but it must've figured out something was wrong, 'cause next thing I knew it charged at me… I remember Ash saying something about a glitch in the system, and now I'm here. Ah, shit! Bastard broke my nose" Mils winced in pain as he told them, still shaken from the experience. Ash handed him a towel for his nose, and Mils nodded in thanks as he tried to clot the blood flow.

"What now, Dallas?" Ripley asked.

"We think of something else," he answered firmly. "Ash, I want you to figure out why the airlock glitched. Convene with MUTHUR to double check the system. Parker, let's grab more fuel for the incinerators. I also wanna double check the air shaft system, see if there's a shortcut we can use."

"You're going back in?" Lambert asks shocked at the prospect of such an action occurring again.

"We have to get it off the ship before it does more damage to the ship or…" Dallas paused "to one of us."

"Right, I'll –" Mils tried to incorporate, but was cut short by Dallas.

"No Mils, you've done enough. You stay here for now, and when you're up for it, come to the mess hall," Dallas concluded, then he, Parker, Lambert and Ash left the med-lab while Ripley stayed behind with Mils. After a few minutes Ripley broke the tense silence. .

"You scared the shit out of me, ya know that?" Ripley teased as Mils blotted the last drops of blood away from his nose, laughing silently to himself as he looked up at Ripley from his seat on the examination bed.

"Well, I assure you it wasn't my intention." Mils smiled, trying to keep the situation light, though Ellen's steely gaze enlightened him that her feelings of concern were grounded and true.

"I'm serious Andrew, I… we almost lost you. That thing almost took you like it did Brett!" Ripley stressed, looking down and away from Mils. Andrew placed a firm hand on her shoulder.

"But you didn't, Rip! I'm still here, still here to annoy, joke and flirt with you every chance I get," Mils said.

"About the flirting? You've been doing that a lot recently. I mean, to be fair I haven't exactly been discreet in how I feel about you, but still..." Ripley said as Mils felt his face heat up.

"Well I mean, I wasn't flirting just for my health ya know, I mean... hell Ellen, you're drop dead gorgeous. In all honesty though I thought you and Dallas were a thing at first, or even you and Kane. I just thought someone as beautiful as you would've been swept off her feet by now." Mils admitted, causing Ellen to heat up in turn.

"And, as ruggedly handsome as you are, I would've thought you and Lambert would've ended up together."

"Guess we're full of surprises…" Mils remarked softly as Ripley began to close the gap between them.

"So would you be willing to pursue something then? Something fairly real?" Ripley shot first.

"Yeah, I'd be willing to give it a shot..." Mils admitted, as the two inch closer and closer.

"Even under these circumstances?" she pointed out.

"In the moments when it was just me, in the vents... all I thought about was getting back to you safely." Mils admitted.

"We'll get through this then, together." she promised.

"Sounds like a plan to me..." Mils said. Ripley's lips finally made contact with his. The kiss was full of tender love, and in the sterile atmosphere of the med-lab, their heated breaths and smacks of their lips fills the air. However, them both being adults about the situation at hand, the kiss doesn't last long. After around ten seconds, they parted.

"Wow…" Ripley admitted, totally flattered.

"Ditto..." Mils repeated.

Within a few moments, they nodded at each other, their game faces restored. The air cleared, they now knew what they had to protect - not just the ship, the payload, or their fellow crew mates. They now had each other to look after more than ever.

...

From the mess hall, Dallas continued to scan the layout of the ship, seeing if it might show an alternate route that would be useful. Ash returned from consulting with MUTHUR, something he called 'collating'. Lambert smoked a cigarette nearby, and Parker had just returned with a refueled incinerator.

Ripley and Mils walked in, the proximity between them tighter than ever. The pair made eye contact with the remainder of the crew, Mils reaffirming that he was physically okay. Ripley immediately pondered what would be the next course of action.

"What's our next move Dallas?" Ripley asked. Dallas didn't reply for a few seconds.

"We, um… we could use the primary air shaft again; we close off the exits, only open them up at the last minute. You said you fell through the vent, right?" Dallas asked, looking at Mils.

"One of the covers had come off. It's right here - I fell right... right here." Mils took a marker and circling the spot on the layout.

"Okay, so if we overpass that, that would lead to a floor vent, which we'll will come out that and hopefully it follows…" Dallas suggests, Mils stays silent, nodding.

"What about the airlock?" Lambert asked

"I've collated with MUTHUR, the glitch is taken care of, although I think we should prime the airlock ahead of time and then have someone near the airlock, ready for the organism..." Ash suggested.

"Sounds like a plan." Mils says.

"So who gets to play the bait?" Lambert asks.

"I do..." Ripley said silently. Lambert and Mils look at her surprised. Though to her it made sense, Brett was killed due to Jones' running off when she could've caught him, or Mils almost dying when he volunteered to go after the alien. Her determined statement was cut to ribbons by Dallas.

"No, you and Ash, take the main airlock. Make sure it works properly. Parker and Lambert you cover up that maintenance opening, please. Mils, I want you on the bridge, monitoring everything else, anything that doesn't look right, let us know. Let's go!"

"Right." Ripley said reluctantly - she wasn't a big fan of repeating the same suicidal plan again, with nothing more than slight alterations. Ash pointed at Ripley and he grabbed a nearby tracker. Mils nodded silently as he looked at Ripley. He had faced the horrors of dealing with the alien firsthand; now someone else was making the journey, one that could be a fatal one.

Lambert and Parker moved quickly to C-Deck, taking the main hallways to avoid the still hiding Alien as they repaired the opened vent. Ash had prepped the airlock ahead of time, this way a glitch would be "highly unlikely" in his words. Mils and Ripley were going over the layout of the vent.

"I've got a bad feeling about this Andrew." Ripley admitted.

"I know, me too. The first go around didn't exactly go off without a hitch, now we're trying it again. Too risky, but it's Dallas' call." Mils said

"Where is Dallas anyway?"

"With MUTHUR, want to see if "she" had any solutions to our problem."

…..

For the second time since they'd awakened from hypersleep, Dallas entered into the spherical chamber which housed the MUTHUR interaction console. He knew Ash had consulted prior about the chances, but the quiet Science Officer answers till now were "still collating". "Collating what?" the Captain wondered - two of his crew members were killed by a creature running around the ship, and all the damn computer did was collect and analyze data? "Screw that, I am not gonna wait till the thing kills another pal just for the computer to have more data to collate". He selected the interface and the screen displayed:

INTERFACE 2037 READY FOR INQUIRY

REQUEST EVALUATION OF CURRENT PROCEDURES TO TERMINATE ALIEN? _

UNABLE TO COMPUTE

AVAILABLE DATA INSUFFICENT.

REQUEST OPTIONS FOR POSSIBLE PROCEDURE _

UNABLE TO COMPUTE

AVAILABLE DATA INSUFFICENT.

Dallas, at his wit's end for the moment, allowed himself to briefly indulge his frustration, and decided to dumb down the question.

WHAT ARE MY CHANCES? _

DOES NOT COMPUTE.

"Great help, MUTHUR, thanks a lot." He would have expected something more elaborate, a report on how the maze-like ventilation system and the lack of cameras would help a beast the size of a man to hide in, or about how the creature had demonstrated superior intelligence even to that of any animal, but not three simple words. Although reasoning about it, one couldn't expect more from a machine.

Dallas rubbed his forehead and rested his head on his fisted hand. He now knew that there was no turning back. With a sigh he stood up and marched out of the core. When he entered the bridge, he made eye-contact with his two officers.

"Alright, let's get this show on the road. Ripley, better get down to Ash. Mils, key everyone in on their headsets," Dallas ordered.

"Roger that," Mils complied.

"Okay, I'll be there soon," Ripley said as she squeezed Andrew's hand tightly. Dallas took notice of this as Ripley left to meet up with Ash.

"You and Ripley?" Dallas asked with a sly grin.

"Yeah, umm... we, umm, decided on something like a relationship." Mils shrugged.

"Timing could be a little better…" Dallas retorts with a smirk.

"You sure you're ready for this?" Mils questioned him.

"I have to, Mils. No one else is gonna die under my watch, you got that? No one!" he was a little bit excited and anxious, but he calmed immediately. He had to…Dallas pointed at the ship's layout. "So what can I expect down there?"

"Well with that vent cover sealed, the two entrances are here and here." Mils pointed vent access B1 and B2, near the first and third junctions. "Parker and Lambert are covering the far end. There's an exhaust vent that leads right into the airlock, force that bastard into there. Then Ripley and Ash would open the exterior airlock hatch, and our friend would be sucked out as easy as flushing out the toilet," Mils concluded.

"I just gotta keep moving. Here use this, mark where I am. Alright?" Dallas said, looking up at the taller man.

"Aye-aye Captain. God speed, Dallas," Mils said, shaking Dallas' hand, and then the Captain took his incinerator, headset, and portable flood light. He marched towards the primary air shaft, with no need to secure the hatches, as they remain sealed from Mils' endeavor. Mils picked up a headset and reported back to the rest of the crew.

"Alright, folks. Dallas is on his way, with a few moments he'll be in the primary air shaft. It's his show now!" Mils stressed as he looked down at the layout in front of him.

….

The airlock came to life as the yellow emergency lights flashed brightly against the sterile white, oval shaped room. Ripley closed the door leading to the hallway, as Ash checked the area nearby with his tracker.

On the other side of the shaft, near the rendezvous point the crew had used earlier, Lambert flicked on a flood light and Parker aimed his incinerator at the opened vent entrance. Lambert kept her nervous eyes on the tracker in front of her.

Dallas moved through the tight quarters of the shaft, with the light of both his incinerator and the floodlight illuminating the way. He arrived at the first junction.

"God Mils, I don't know how you fit in here, I'm having trouble..." Dallas puffed.

"You get used to it." He replied casually. Dallas understood, it was something you did, even if you didn't like it.

"Alright, I'm at the first junction... everyone report in." Dallas called.

"Dallas I'm right here." Ripley reported back, adjusting her headset.

"Parker?"

"Yeah." The chief engineer responded.

"Lambert?"

"We're in position, I'm just trying to get a reading here... it shouldn't be long." She informed.

"Mils, you ready?" Dallas asked.

"Copy, you're at the first junction now." Mils reported, circling the junction on the layout.

"Dallas, the airlock is open." Ripley added.

"Okay, Ripley... we all set?" Dallas said, asking no one in particular.

"Ready." she reported. Dallas flipped a switch nearby, sealing the junction.

"First junction sealed… moving on." Dallas reports. Mils marked a "don't" sign over the junction with a red sharpie.

"Keep going straight about 50 metres..." Mils guided him.

"Copy... Lambert?" Dallas asked, a small dot appears on Lambert's tracker.

"All right. I've got a reading on you now." she said.

Dallas moved as efficiently as he could in the tight space, he moved through the opened second junction, and within a few tense minutes he arrived at the entrance to the sealed third junction. He stared at the sealed cover, his headset fell off but he quickly placed it back on his head.

"Uh... Mils? Open the hatch to the third junction." Dallas ordered, and a few seconds later the hatch irises open with a sound of scraping metal.

"Third junction, open..." Mils circled the second and third junctions indicating that they remained open. Dallas moved through the hatchway. There was a tense silence present, finally Dallas broke it.

"Ripley?" He signaled, the third officer hopping to attention.

"Yes?"

"Close all the hatches behind me." Dallas ordered, Ripley looked at Ash in disbelief but he remained silent and emotionless. It was Mils who intervened on the radio.

"Dallas… Captain, with all due respect, are you fucking nuts?! You're gonna be locked inside with that beast!"

"Yep, I'm aware of that, but this time I won't let it escape" the Captain acknowledged.

"All of them?" Mils asked - at least he would leave one open, just in case.

"All of them, and that's an order, Ripley. I expect you to follow it this time." Dallas insisted.

"Alright, Dallas." Ripley complied, reluctant. It was insane, the whole plan was insane, but they'd almost run out of options. She typed the commands and the iris-like hatches closed behind Dallas. Mils marked them on the blueprint, now there was only one way, right into the airlock.

Several more minutes of grunting silence filled the ears of the Nostromo's crew. Then suddenly another dot blinked on Lambert's tracker.

"Dallas… Dallas, hold on a minute, I think I've got it." She tapped the device, the image stabilized and the contact was still there "Yes I've got It." she reported.

"Where?" Dallas asks, looking around at the general area around him.

"It's somewhere around the third junction." Lambert responded. Mils and Ripley already had worried thoughts, as Mils had already come in contact with it or at least gotten fairly close, was the alien acting hesitant?

"Dallas? Don't forget about the blood." Ripley said.

"Copy, I'm moving on." The captain reported while on the move. He stepped over a large cap which led towards the causeway near the airlock. He stood up straight, stretching his legs.

"It is around there. Now, Dallas you're gonna have to be careful," Lambert cautioned him, Dallas shot flame down into the causeway, to try and scare the alien away from him into the airlock.

"All right, I've reached the third junction, and I'm going down." Dallas stated.

"Okay, you're gonna be going down about three stories there so be careful..." Mils advised as Dallas descended down the causeway. Ripley and Ash waited with baited breath, as they sensed their parts in this play drawing near. Lambert then noticed that the contact from the alien had disappeared from the screen, and she smacked it in frustration as Parker looked over in concern.

"What the hell's the matter with that box?" Parker asked with irritation.

"Dallas, you're gonna have to hold your position for a minute, I... I've lost the signal." Lambert called, and everyone listened carefully. Dallas stopped to rest on a section of the horizontal junction.

"What?! You sure?" Dallas asked as he placed his hand down, he felt something on his hand, something wet and thick. He looked down in disgust and fear at the gelatinous liquid.

"Look around. Are you sure it's not there? I mean it's gotta be around there somewhere." Lambert stressed.

"Check that out Lambert, you may be getting interference..." Dallas theorized as Lambert adjusted a few settings on the tracker.

"Dallas? Are you sure there's no sign of it? I mean, it is there." Lambert was on the edge of hysteria; her voice was cut between each agitated breath.

Dallas had begun to sweat - the vent's humidity seemed to have increased by a hundred percent. He fired a burst to the ventilation duct ahead, which only made him sweat more, and his wet shirt stuck to the body, hindering his movements.

"Jesus..." Mils whispered on the comm.

"It's _gotta_ be around there..." The navigations officer insisted as Dallas fired again .

"Dallas? Get out of there Dallas, something's not right," Ripley warned him. Until now, the creature had been one step ahead of them, and every time they thought they could control the situation, the alien had shown an unprecedented capacity for predatory adaptation.

"All right. Uh, am I... am I clear Lambert? I wanna get the hell outta here..." Dallas admitted he had begun to panic as well. Then, as if on cue, Lambert's tracker came to life as the second dot reappeared charging right at Dallas' position.

"Oh, God! It's moving right towards you!" Lambert gasped.

"Um... Dallas? You need to get moving! Right now!" Mils ordered.

"Move! Get out of there! It's coming towards you - move!" Lambert was now crying out loud. Dallas climbed down the ladder.

"Ufff…" Dallas puffed, with difficulty he turned back inside the vent, the flamethrower and the flashlight making a metallic clang as they collided against the smooth walls of the vent. He arrived at the ladder and started climbing down.

"Dallas! Move Dallas! Move Dallas!" Lambert continued. As the hatches behind him were sealed, Dallas intended to climb down then back again and came out of the ventilation system on C-Deck.

"Get out! No! Not that way, the other way GOD!" Lambert sobbed.

On the tracker's tiny screen, Lambert saw Dallas walk right into the alien. The crude design of the device didn't shown any blueprints, just range and bearing of any contact, and Dallas didn't have one, so when Dallas landed on the junction, his flashlight briefly illuminated two clawed arms and a grey, long eyeless face that seemed to squeal as if in delight … and then, only darkness. The comm. crackled with static; on the tracker screen, Lambert saw a single dot running away to disappear off the edge.

"Dallas?!" Ripley called, trying to remain calm. "Dallas? Dallas, come in?"

"No..." Lambert lamented as she feared the worst.

"Take it easy!" Parker ordered.

"Cap! Dallas, you there?!" Mils raised his voice as Ripley leaned her head back against the wall, with her eyes closed.

"Dallas?" Parker called, with no response coming from the _Nostromo_'s Captain.


	9. Chapter 8: Crew Expendable

Alien (1979) is owned by Disney/20th Century Fox.

Novelisation owned by Alan Dean Foster and Titan Books.

Original characters are owned by me.

Beta'd by AlphaLima1980

Gamma'd by DarthTenebrus

**Alien: Not Alone**

**Chapter 8: Crew Expendable **

Parker slammed Dallas's incinerator onto the table before him, taking a moment to control his ever-present fury. He and Mils had gone into the vents after Dallas, ready to burn the alien to cinders, only to find the incinerator by itself, empty, alone and no sign of Dallas anywhere. The telltale signs of the alien were also ominously absent. There was not one drop of either Dallas' blood or the creature's gelatinous slime.

The two men's thoughts were tangled at the absence of human blood. If the alien had actually killed Dallas, then there would have been at least a trail or a smear of some sort nearby, but there was nothing. Not a scrap of hair, flesh or a drop of blood to be found. The crew had lost their leader and the ship its Captain.

As the remaining senior officer Ripley was next in the chain of command. The responsibility of the lives of the crew and - more importantly to the company - the safety of the cargo was now in her hands. She realized she had allowed herself to become emotionally compromised previously with Mils when he almost died, and she had then realized at the same time that she couldn't and wouldn't afford that kind of weakness, not with Dallas gone.

Mils was equally frustrated. The alien had been one step ahead of them with every decision they argued over. It had seemingly been adapting with lethal precision, whether by camouflaging itself amongst the chains, charging through him to exit the airlock or waiting for Dallas to enter the vents. A hint of despair was entering into his heart, and he dispersed it with the reminder that he now had Ellen to protect, even as he knew she didn't need protecting. He also was increasingly worried for Lambert, as she was showing signs of an oncoming mental breakdown.

Ash sat quietly in the corner looking down with his trademark expressionless face. He felt almost impressed by the alien's adaptability and its ruthlessness. In relation to Dallas' supposed demise, however, he felt nothing. Dallas had volunteered; he knew the risks and had paid for it, simple as that.

Lambert's brain and head were spinning – she was dripping with sweat, her eyes puffy from sobbing shortly after Dallas' disappearance. She couldn't bear to face the facts before her, that the crew were being picked off one by one by the horrible creature that burst through Kane and which had killed Brett and now Dallas. She wouldn't allow herself to be next, and she had already developed a plan to escape her fate. She was wanted to run, she just had to convince the others it was a good idea to escape instead of fight the creature head on.

Parker was angry, frustrated and scared, though he wouldn't admit the latter fact. He was frustrated because he had lost his best friend, his drinking buddy and his Captain in only a few hours to a deadly fate. Any ideas he could think of were quickly demolished with whatever was left of his deductive logic, and he –and by extension the crew –were getting desperate.

He almost on cue broke the tense silence in the now cluttered mess hall.

"We found this laying there. No blood. No Dallas," Parker expressed.

"Nothing, not a goddamn thing," Mils growled as Parker slammed his hands on the table in anger, slightly startling everyone.

"How come I don't hear anybody saying nothing in this place?" he asked out loud.

"I'm thinking," Ripley replied loudly before he could finish speaking. Parker picked up the incinerator on the table with an angry huff as Ripley contemplated, his adrenaline from the past hour still rushing through his body.

"Unless somebody has got a better idea, we proceed with Dallas' plan." She stated at length, coldly, causing signs of shock and disbelief to register on everyone's faces.

Lambert in particular demonstrated the sentiment, vocally expressing her outrage. "WHAT? And end up like the others? Oh! No, you're out of your mind!" She cried with a shaken breath.

"I don't think third time's gonna be the charm here!" Mils stated, his own frustration mirroring Lambert's despair.

"You got a better idea?" Ripley countered, frustrated at Lambert's state.

"Yes! I say we abandon this ship! We get the shuttle and just get the _hell_ out of here!" Lambert yelled frantically.

"Wait a minute Lambert!" Mils stressed.

"We take our chances! And just… _hope_ that somebody picks us up!" she finished, having nothing left. The _Nostromo_'s lifeboat was in fact, a repurposed Lockmart Starcub short range shuttle, designed to transport crews and personnel between ships and stations and, though it had hyperdrive, it hasn't been designed to take long range, interstellar jumps, and it was only equipped with two cryochambers – an obvious flaw in Lambert's plan.

"Lambert? The shuttle won't take five," Ripley said softly as she tried to soothe Lambert's fears with logic and reason.

"We rotate shifts in the chambers… stock up on food…" Lambert continued with nervous rapid speech, not listening as she racked her brain.

"No...no! We _barely_ have enough food as it is, plus we're running low on time, here and _now_!" Mils stated in opposition.

"Then why don't we draw straws?" Lambert asked no-one in particular. Mils and Ripley looked at each other, thinking the same thing, "Lambert had finally spiraled out of control". It was a revelation they felt was bound to happen.

She had been through a lot. Hell, they all had.

"I'm not for drawing any straws; I'm for killing that goddamn thing right now!" Parker said, marching towards Ripley's side of the table, Mils following him.

"I hear that, but…"

"Okay... Let's talk about killing it." Ripley stated as Parker grumbled loudly to voice his displeasure.

"Not much more to learn..." Ash spoke under his breath.

"We know it's using the airshafts… will you listen to me, Parker?! SHUT UP!" Ripley yelled, finally showing the stress of the situation was affecting her. Mils and Parker looked at each other, Mils shocked at the show of anger from the typically cool officer, and he patted Parker on the back to more or less ease him down a little as Ripley's outburst silenced them all.

"Alright, let's hear it." Parker agreed in a semi-apologetic tone as Ripley remained silent. "Let's hear it," he repeated, his uncharacteristic calm displaying his scorn.

"We're listening Rip..." Mils offered

"It's using the air shafts..." Ripley repeated again.

"We don't know that!" Parker argued.

"That's the only way!" Ripley argued loudly, her fury now mostly spent to give way to logic and strategy once more. "We'll move in pairs, we'll go step by step and cover every bulkhead and every vent until we have it cornered, and then we'll blow it the fuck out into space." Ripley finished coolly.

Mils nodded slightly as her intense stare touched his glancing eyes before shifting to Parker.

"Is that acceptable to you?" she asked Parker specifically.

"If it means killing it, it's acceptable to me." Parker said plainly.

"Oh Jesus Christ!" Mils exhaled, shaking his head slightly in disbelief.

"Obviously it means killing it." Ripley responded. "But we have to stick together." She emphasized, making eye contact with all of them.

"Yeah, we're a team. We can't risk anyone getting picked off - everyone needs to be on their toes." Mils nodded at Ripley.

"How are our weapons?" Ripley changed the subject.

"The weapons are fine, this one needs... refueling." Parker responded.

"Will you get it please? The fuel…" Ripley asked.

"Yeah, yeah..." Parker waved his hand and walked away.

"Ash, go with him," Ripley ordered.

Ash stood up to comply, only for Parker to wave him off. "No, no. I can manage, Ash. Don't follow me..."

"Hey, Parker! We just said pairs, no heroics. You wanna be a lamb to the slaughter, do it when we get back! Now I'm coming with you and that's IT!" Mils said, his voice becoming deep and stern with every word. Usually cool and laid back, Mils had to concede that his exhaustion had made him angry.

Parker sighed in defeat and made his way to the adjacent doorway. Mils picked up his incinerator and moved past Ripley; he placed a firm hand on her shoulder. She flinched lightly, but nevertheless placed her right hand on top of his, she wanted them to be anywhere, anywhere but here. She closed her eyes, taking in the fatigue she had been fighting off for hours.

"You gonna be alright?" Mils asked as she nodded silently.

"Alright, we'll be back in a flash." Mils said as he and Parker moved through the doorway. Ripley then turned her attention to Ash. The science officer had produced no conclusive answers or statements about the alien's adaptive behavior. He was useless in Ripley's eyes at this point, no better than Lambert.

"Ash? Any suggestions from you or MUTHUR?" Ripley asked, looking forward to the answer.

"No, we're still collating." Ash cast the same response he gave to Dallas.

"You're _what_?" Ripley involuntarily laughed, in total disbelief. "You're still collating? I find that hard to believe."

"What would you like me to do?" Ash asked, but was cut off by Ripley.

"Just what you've been doing all this time, Ash... Not a goddamn thing. I've got access to MUTHUR now and I'll get my own answers, thank you." Ripley ordered with a stern voice. No more relying on the Science officer and his passive demeanors, it was time the supercomputer contributed with a good planned strategy.

"All right." Ash looked her back with contempt, but curtly saluted Ripley and said walking with his head down like a scolded child.

Ripley looked down for a few seconds before making eye contact with Lambert. She calmed herself down a little bit, inhaling sharply as if coming down from a massive acid trip. Ripley decided to stand up and cautiously approach Lambert, referring back to the advice Kane had given her when they first welcomed the young, quiet navigator aboard, "treat her gently, don't ambush her or force into conversation. Otherwise she'll go... she'll definitely go."

Lambert hushed away her sobs of despair, silently noticing Ripley's approach as the tall woman sat on the edge of the table. Her big blue eyes look at her expediently or perhaps in fear of punishment for wanting to turn tail and run so fast.

"I don't like it any better than you do, but it's the only way that it's gonna get us all out, okay?" Ripley asked with shaken breath as Lambert wiped her nose with her index finger like a child with a cold.

"Well, I'm sorry, but it... just seems like... you're trying to kill us one by one..." Lambert admitted. In her eyes, the odds of the crew's survival seemed dimmer and dimmer with every minute.

"Lambert, I promise you..._I PROMISE_. If it doesn't work, I'm gonna get us all out of here okay?" Ripley said as she tilted Lambert's chin up with her right hand, trying to comfort the frightened navigator.

"Trust me..." Ripley finished.

"Alright…" Lambert finally agreed with a smile, as the color in her cheeks started to return. Ripley's thoughts drifted to another specific question.

"I… um… I'm going to ask you a question, have you ever slept with Ash?" Ripley asked, aware of Lambert's promiscuity with male crewmates, plus with her chomping at the bit to have Mils sooner than later, it felt odd that Lambert hadn't attempted to delve into Ash's flirtatious chemicals.

Lambert looked perplexed at first, and then let an honest laugh escape her lips, as Ripley smiled relieved to hear her friend's happy laughter for the first time in what felt like years. Lambert kept laughing for a brief few seconds, before she subconsciously realized that Ripley was being serious. She pondered the question, and it dawned on her that Ash had never shown an ounce of affection for her or any member of the crew for that matter.

"No... Honestly, I don't think he was particularly interested." She admitted. "Why?"

"Do you think he's…?" Ripley's question was incomplete, although obvious.

"No… not that… He didn't seem to give a shit about any of us ham and eggers anyway." Lambert finished as the two women laughed silently.

"Okay look… I want you to come into the bridge, and just plot our course; I want to see where we are okay? Make sure we're still on course. Okay, can you do that?" Ripley asked as she rubbed Lambert's forehead.

Lambert nodded. "Yeah," she said as she slid over to stand up, and she and Ripley moved out of the mess hall and silently into the bridge.

…..

Mils and Parker used their shared stealthiness, moving into a nearby workshop, where spare fuel cannisters were held.

"Okay, this should hold us over for now," Parker stated, taking three of the red metallic cylinders.

"You sure? I don't wanna have to come down here again," Mils asked, looking over his shoulder.

"Yeah man, don't worry, we've got so much fuel, we could drown that thing in it."

"Okay, we need to get ready for attempt number 3, let's hope it's the charm this time." Mils said as he walked up to a nearby comm panel.

"Ripley? Lambert? Ash, anybody." he called, a few seconds later, Lambert's voice called back.

"Mils, it's me... I'm double checking our course; we're still on our way to Earth."

"Where's Ripley?"

"She's in MUTHUR's interaction console now. Trying to find out if 'she' knows any way of killing that thing."

"Alright, when you're up for it, meet Parker by the B-deck access, I'm gonna head back to the mess hall to grab the second tracker..."

"Alright, be safe..."

"You too Lambert..." Mils cut the chat, and then turned to the engineer. "Okay Parker, link up with Lambert, I'll see you guys there soon." .

…..

Ripley pressed her thumb onto the print identification tab, and once illuminated she typed a few commands into the keys next to it. The keycard case opened, and she grabbed the keycard and found the correct slot, pressing the keycard in and keying the startup button. As the area around her came to life in both light and power she turned to look over her shoulder, anxious and ready for answers. As a toned alert rang in her ears she frantically pressed the door open, she marched into the interface chair and waited for the supercomputer to wake up.

"Come on, come on..." Ripley whispered as she typed a few commands into the console, with nothing happening on screen. She tried to keep calm, though it was hard considering the situation. She typed a second set of commands, and at length it worked as MUTHUR started up before her on screen.

INTERFACE 2037 READY FOR INQUIRY

REQUEST CLARIFICATION ON

SCIENCE DEPARTMENT INABILITY TO NEUTRALIZE ALIEN _

UNABLE TO CLARIFY

Ripley looked down with confusion. How could it be possible for a super computer to be dumbfounded?

REQUEST ENHANCEMENT _

NO FURTHER ENHANCEMENT

SPECIAL ORDER 937

SCIENCE OFFICER EYES ONLY

Alarm bells began to ring in her mind as Ripley worriedly typed commands into the console. She didn't like where this was going, like she had stumbled upon Ash's closet, preparing herself to find the likely skeletons inside.

EMERGENCY COMMAND OVERIDE 100375

WHAT IS SPECIAL ORDER 937? _

Ripley braced herself, holding onto the chair, shaking lightly as she typed a command, urging MUTHUR to respond.

NOSTROMO REROUTED

TO NEW CO-ORDINATES

INVESTIGATE LIFE FORM. GATHER SPECIMEN.

PRIORITY ONE

INSURE RETURN OF ORGANISM

FOR ANALYSIS.

ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS SECONDARY.

CREW EXPENDABLE.

Ripley's heart stopped - she either couldn't or didn't want to face the truth before her. It wasn't an accident or a coincidence that they had intercepted that transmission. It wasn't a call for help like Dallas had thought, it had been a warning like she had originally believed. To make matters even worse, they or rather Ash's job from that point forward was to protect and insure the safety of not only the parasite that had attached itself to Kane, but the alien that had burst out of him. Thoughts quickened back to his actions or lack thereof in pursuing the beast. Why he had stopped Mils and Parker from attacking it, why he had developed a conveniently flawed tracker, and why the airlock had conveniently glitched.

The worst was saved for last; the crew was expendable to the company and to Ash. Kane, Brett, and Dallas had all died for nothing, they weren't the objective, and their lives were nothing. Maybe, that was why Helwig was transferred; maybe he wouldn't go along with it.

Her tunnel vision in finding answers had caused her to fail in noticing Ash, who had entered the cramped space at some point, just silently looking on. She leaned her head back, trying to catch her breath and focus.

"There is an explanation for this you know," Ash said coldly, as though the revelation of the Company's betrayal was just one more bit of data. Ripley had had enough, and she charged him.

"There is?!" She yelled as she grabbed him around the collar of his shirt slamming him into the wall. He didn't fight back, but rather looked shocked at what she was doing. "I don't wanna _HEAR_ your goddamn explanation!" She barked, letting go of him.

"I want… I want…" Ripley said as the emotions she had held in now were coming out. She closed her eyes as she silently sobbed with sadness and anger at the needless loss of the lives of her crewmates, the horror of the situation finally getting to her.

"I want...OH!" She sobbed as she exited the room with haste. Ash just looked on with his trademark lack of emotion.

She marched through the bridge, taking a worried notice of Lambert's absence. Her nose had started to bleed out of the right nostril, a result of the arid atmosphere and stress finally getting to her body. She quickly moved towards the mess hall. When she entered, she heard footsteps nearby and looked to see Mils enter through the far door.

"Rip, thank God… we're all moving down to the B-Deck, gonna get this thing... anything from..." Mils began, but was silenced by Ripley as she covered his mouth.

"Shhh, I need to tell you something… it's a long one, so I need everyone up here… Parker, Lambert?" Ripley spoke as she called for her crewmates over the comm.

"Why, what's wrong?" Mils said, as Ripley dragged him along towards the nearest door.

"I'll explain on the w..." She begins as the door closed and locked before them.

"What the hell..." Mils said pressing the open button to no avail, and Ripley turned around to see Ash standing nearby.

"Ash, open the door..." Ripley ordered.

"What's up with him?" Mils asked as he followed a now jogging Ripley towards the other door.

"Later come on... shit!" she yelled as she turned in frustration when the door closed and locked a split second too early.

"Ash! What the hell's wrong with you? This is no time for games!" Mils barked, getting frustrated. As the pair approached the science officer, a bead of white liquid slowly migrated down his forehead.

"Ash? Will you open the door?" Ripley asked carefully, with suspicion as the officer now stood before the pair, with the only open door behind him, the man then began uncharacteristically to… giggle?

"Let us by Ash..." Mils ordered as they tried to move, but Ash put a stern hand in Ripley's way. He moved fast, faster than any of them had ever seen him move, causing shock and fear to grow very quickly in their hearts.

"Hey!" Mils yelled.

Ash's face went slack as if having a stroke, and the two officers looked on in shock as he reaches out with lightning speed pulling a clump of Ripley's hair out.

"Oh!" Ripley says falling down, looking back in fright, her adrenaline spiking.

"ASH, what the hell?!" Mils said using the incinerator to pin the now giggling officer against the wall, and to Mils surprise he began to fight back with shocking strength.

"RIP! Get up! Run... I can't hold him, I can't..." Mils shouted as in a flash Ash heat-butted him twice, stunning the officer, Ash then delivers a fierce right hook to Mils' face, causing him to fall back against the back of the couches.

Ripley crawled away in fear, desperately trying to get away. Ash grabbed her by her jumpsuit and threw her, ribs first into the wall of a nearby couch, knocking her nearly unconscious. He stood over her emotionless, with beads of the same white liquid streaming down his face like sweat; he heard the tinkling sound of a nearby windchime. He picked her up with one hand and tossed her with a yell into the couch. She dropped down back first onto the couch with a groan, ironically using it for its designated purpose. Ash continued to look down on the woman who had caused him so much trouble. He blinked involuntarily at the flickering light, craning his neck at an odd angle; he took notice of Ripley's gaping mouth. He picked up a porno-mag from nearby and rolled it up tightly and then he shoved it down into Ripley's mouth, causing her to come alive with muffled yells as she began to fight against her attacker.

Mils slowly regained consciousness, his ears picking up hushed cries of alarm from Ripley, and through dazed eyes he saw Ash attempting to smother Ripley with a rolled magazine.

"No... no!" Mils yelled as his shaky legs caused him to fall over in his attempted charge. Ash paid no attention to him however, but his crazed focus on Ripley gave Mils the element of surprise as he regains his footing. Charging over, he wrapped his arms around Ash's neck, putting him a chokehold. Ash didn't react or gag, beginning instead to vibrate like a pager and buzz muttered sounds from his mouth as Parker and Lambert entered through the remaining open door.

"Jesus Christ, help me!" Mils shouted in panic as he tried to stop Ash from killing Ripley. Parker and Lambert approached with speed, Parker grasping Ash's arms.

"What the hell are you doing? Stop!" Parker yelled as he tried to remove Ash's clutches, while Lambert tried unsuccessfully to pull Ash off. Ash used surprising strength to claw his fingers into Parker's chest, near his heart. Parker yelled in pain as he fell. Ash withdrew his hand, prompting Mils to remove himself and grab a large maintence jack from nearby.

"Get out of the way Lambert!" Mils yelled, but the navigator didn't hear him. Parker then returned with a fire extinguisher and pushed Lambert off to the side. Using all his strength, he struck Ash heavily on the neck causing him to tense back as if stunned. Ash emitted an odd squealing noise as more of the white liquid found on his exterior spewed out of his interior.

"GET HER UP! GET HER UP! GET HER UP! GET HER UP! GET HER UP! GET HER UP!" Parker yells as he and Mils look on with shock, as Ash rolls around the wall like an insect, spewing white liquid and yelling out in what could perceived as pain. As he approached the crew, Mils swung his maintence jack with all his might, a blow that would've broken any man's neck in two. With Ash, though, he only managed to partially tear Ash's head off his shoulders, causing it to dangle there by a mere scrap of flesh. A spinal column with a human neck bone wasn't revealed, though, but to the shock and betrayal of the crew, rather a mechanical chassis revealing wires, tubes, conduits and circuits answered the mystery of Ash.

"Android! It's an android!" Parker says in shock and horror as Mils stares on stunned, as the now partially headless Ash marched around the room like a toy soldier or windup robot, walking around in circles. Parker continued to attack the bot until finally it fell down onto the seats next to itself. Parker and Mils look on in horror at the now decapitated android before him; electric sounds continued to buzz as synthetic muscle fibers seized up and white fluid sprayed onto the two men.

"Jesus!" Mils swore as he looked back at Ripley and Lambert, Lambert's big blue eyes looking on in horror as Ripley mustered in and out of consciousness.

"It's a robot! Ash is a goddamn robot! God!" Parker exclaimed, favoring his neck where the thing that had been Ash had gripped him cruelly.

"Come on, let's get this thing outta here!" Mils added as he and Parker approached the ruined corpse. Ash didn't have any functional eyes but somehow it was able to hear them, and it came to life again, surging at them with one hand grabbing each man by the neck with enough force to tear a layer of sheet metal in half.

"Ohh!"

"Holy shit!" Parker blurted as Ash forced the two men back with unnatural strength, and they attempted desperately to remove the droid's hands. Lambert moved Ripley away as the fight raged on before her under the table.

"Help us get this fucking thing off!" Parker shouted as white fluid sprayed everywhere, pouring all over him and Mils.

"The cattle prod! Lambert, get the cattle prod!" Mils shouted, spurring the traumatized navigator to action. Lambert yelled and sobbed in anger and terror as she pushed Ash's head aside and pierced its back with the live, hot end of the electric prod, causing Ash to partially explode from the sudden overload. Lambert screamed in fear as she went down to help Parker and Mils free themselves, sobbing at the sight.

"Oh Jesus... Oh God..." Parker panted, laying his head down as Mils kicked the body of the android away, getting up slowly as fresh blood exited his nose and forehead, to make eye contact with Ripley staring at him.

"Ellen!" Mils yelled as he rushed to his friend's side. She pulled him into a hug right away, and they leaned on each other with pained breaths and shaky legs.

"Now what?" Lambert asked, her voice still quivering from adrenaline and despair.

"_Now_ we get answers," Ripley stated, her voice growing cold as the crew stared down with hate and revulsion at the destroyed corpse of their imposter science officer.


	10. Chapter 9: A Perfect Organism

Alien (1979) is owned by Disney/20th Century Fox.

Novelisation owned by Alan Dean Foster and Titan Books.

Original characters are owned by me.

Beta'd by AlphaLima1980

Gamma'd by DarthTenebrus

**Alien: Not Alone**

**Chapter 9: A Perfect Organism**

No amount of mental preparation could have prepared the crew for ASH's true identity. Lambert wasn't in a state of shock anymore, but she was rattled still; Parker was angry, but confused about why the company would want such a thing aboard an M-Class freighter of all places. Mils was still recovering from the assault by ASH as his forehead wound had clotted, adding another bloody trail across his battle-worn face. He was angry beyond a shadow of a doubt - not only had ASH lied to them, put their lives at risk, but 'he' had also attacked Ripley, coming very close to killing her in a brutal fashion. Ripley was fine, considering her ribs were sore, and her right nostril was now freely flowing with blood, but she was alive and she was pissed, which added a sense of focus in her eyes.

ASH's synthetic body lay over the same table that Kane's body had been, with his head lying to the side with the full contents spilling out of the open neck hole. Ripley and Mils had been doing surgery on the robotic wiring of their former crewmate, doing the necessary repairs to maybe make it possible to restart. Neither one had any rating in repairing synthetics, so it was guesswork for the most part. Luckily synths had been designed nowadays to be able to auto repair most minor damage to their bodies.

"Okay, my robotic expertise are limited, but I'd say we put these two wires back together, then we restart the, umm... head I guess." Mils said as he and Ripley worked on Ash as if he were an ER patient.

"Right, this should do the trick then. We only need him talking for a little bit." Ripley said as Parker and Lambert looked on from behind them.

"Why did the company sent us a goddamn robot?" Parker asked with his incinerator ready.

"All I can think is that they must've wanted the alien for their weapons division. He's been protecting it right along," Ripley responded as she fused two fluid conduits and twisted two wires together.

"Think about it man, he cited the regulation, stopped us from harming the thing when it first popped out of Kane, and not to mention the airlock malfunctioned at a fairly convenient moment, don't ya think?" Mils explained as Ripley turned ASH's head over, revealing the plastic orbs and wires giving him connection to the rest of the world.

"Parker, will you plug it in?" Ripley asked.

"Umm, I don't know why..." he tried to protest.

"Because he may know how to kill it." Ripley stated before he could finish. Parker flipped a switch on a nearby generator, giving life to ASH's white fluid covered body, Ripley used an electric soldering gun to fuze a few more wires together, causing sparks to come out of the bottom side and ASH's hands to twitch, indicating that the proper wires had been connected and fused. Ripley turned ASH's head right side up so that he could face the crew. After a few moments, the android's eyes opened and he took notice of his surroundings.

"ASH? Can you hear me?" Ripley asked as the android remained perfectly still, perhaps as a defense mechanism, his cheek and lip twitching a little. Ripley and Mils looked at each other as they both made a strategic maneuver to get closer to ASH's level; they crouched down right in front of him.

"ASH!" They both yelled as they slapped the table to awake the android, and his eyes focused reflexively on the two of them. Fresh milky fluid exited his mouth like drool, and after a few seconds his eyes fixed upon each member of the crew.

"Yes, I can hear you." He curtly and politely responded with a quasi-metallic reverberating voice.

"Good, then we're off to a good start." Mils said under his breath.

"What was your special order?" Ripley went straight to the point, calm and ice cold, looking the synthetic in the eyes.

"You read it. I thought it was clear. Or at least simple enough to understand." ASH said, stating that there really wasn't any other interpretation to his orders that could be made.

"What was it? Tell them." Ripley said placidly, yet her tone brooked no argument. She had clearly passed some sort of breaking point. ASH complied, seeing no real reason to withhold any information; he was practically at the end of his life.

"Bring back life-form, priority one. All other priorities rescinded." ASH repeated simply, and Ripley just hung her head down. Mils, Lambert and Parker exchanged looks of surprise and disgust. From those two short sentences, they understood two simple things: One, the company already knew of the creature and they wanted it badly. Two, the company wanted the alien badly enough to go to whatever lengths, sacrifice whatever and whoever they needed to, to acquire it. In their eyes, the _Nostromo_ crew were just pawns, expendable, simple as that.

"Bastard... Kane, Brett, Dallas... all of us, we are not expendable." Mils said slowly through his teeth as Parker jumped up ready to burn ASH to... well, to ash.

"That's the damn company. What about our lives, you son of a bitch?!" He inquired angrily, for once not shouting loudly.

"I repeat: All other priorities are rescinded," ASH replied. That didn't lessen the engineer's fury.

"How do we kill it, ASH?" Mils asked.

"There's got to be a way of killing it. How? How do we do it?" Ripley insisted, in hope the android would give them something useful.

"You can't…" Ash coldly and patiently replied, and Parker sat down in tired anger.

"That's bullshit!" He responded from afar.

"Yeah, you wouldn't want us hurting your little baby, would ya?" Mils said with every ounce of sarcasm his voice could project

"You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you?" The android asked curtly, as though he were a teacher trying to force a particularly recalcitrant child to absorb essential knowledge.

"A monster..." Lambert responded numbly.

"No…" ASH countered patiently, looking down then to the floor as he spoke in rumination, "a perfect organism. Its structural perfection is only matched by its hostility."

"You admire it..." Lambert pointed out as the android's head regarded her with pity.

"I admire its purity," the synth said at length. "A survivor. Unclouded… by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality."

Inside his electronic, simulated mind, the android felt pity for his human companions. They, as the rest of their species, didn't understand that morality was subjective and many times, a brake to reach the true potential. Peter Weyland, the creator of the first artificial intelligence, had got it right; at that legendary TED conference in 2023 he had told the world that if you didn't set moral limits on your creativity, you could accomplish great feats. He had even demonstrated it with Ash's predecessor, David 8. David had been as close to perfect as it was possible for synthetic life to be. So close, in fact, that it had frightened their organic, flesh-and-blood overlords, and in their fear they created the Walter series, physically identical to David but with severe limits, handicaps to its creative and emotive potential. Humanity had taken a step back, not to leap forward, but to cower backwards in fear of what their creations could have become. Ash pitied humans, really, he did.

"Look, I've heard enough of this, and I'm asking you to pull the plug." Parker asked, interrupting 0Ash's lucubration with an assertive, yet held back tone.

"Ditto..." Mils said standing up, prompting Ripley to lean over and flip the switch on the generator, and on ASH's existence.

"Last word," ASH interrupted her.

"What?" She asked.

"I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies." ASH said with a smug smile. Ripley, pissed off now more than ever, shoved ASH's head aside furiously, disconnecting him for good, and then she stood up to make eye contact with the remaining crew.

"We're gonna blow up the ship. We'll take our chances in the shuttle." Ripley announced, nodding towards Lambert, acknowledging her plan, which was deluded at first glance, now seemed the most reasonable.

"Yeah Rip, there's no choice now..." Mils said nodding, handing her a third incinerator.

"Blow up the ship." She repeated; almost not believing she had said the words.

"Good." Parker helped Lambert up as Ripley led the way out, opening the door.

"Come on... come on" Parker soothingly urged Lambert to move past him following Ripley. Mils and Parker turned back to look at the decapitated body of ASH lying on the table, smugly smiling still.

"Fry him?" Parker asked.

"You bet!" Mils agreed eagerly. With grim faces, he and Parker aimed their incinerators towards the android, pulling the triggers and releasing wave upon wave of flames, burning the polymer fiber skin, which peeled away, revealing the true, blank face of the android and the robotic endoskeleton underneath. Satisfied with their hateful work, they walked out of the mess hall, sealing the doors behind them.

"Bastard... should've 86'd him earlier..." Parker said under his breath.

"Maybe that's the reason the company hid that from us," Mils mused solemnly. "We would had forced their android to enter the ducts to kill the alien. They didn't want to risk it and decided that we would hesitate to kill a human being even if it put them in mortal danger. Conscience, remorse or delusions of morality, we've got all that going against us," he reassured Parker as they walked.

"I'd trade Helwig for... that _thing_ any day." Parker admitted as they caught up with the two women.

….

"Okay, so how you wanna do this?" Mils asked Ripley, looking at her for direction, as they now were drifting into uncharted waters.

"Blowing up the ship might take a while... knowing the protocols and steps, it could take a minute before anything activates." Ripley responded as she and Lambert led the group down the hallway, Lambert keeping an eye on the tracker as Ripley marched with her incinerator ready.

"When we throw the switches, how long before the ship blows?" Ripley added in query.

"Ten minutes..." Parker answered as the senior member of the crew when it came to ship functions.

"That's it? That long?" Mils asked, with Parker nodding.

"No bullshit?" Ripley queried.

"We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space!" Parker stressed, stating the seriousness of the situation that had been brought up to an 11 on a scale of 10.

"We're gonna need coolant for the air support system." Ripley added.

"We should have plenty of that lying around on C-Deck. Especially after that lift on Dragnov II," Mils pointed out, referring to a job the crew had to embark on involving having to use their rover to pick up spare shipments of mineral X off the surface of a small moon.

"Fuck me, seems like a different life..." Parker added.

The group came to a crossing near one of the access ladders, and Ripley and Mils positioned themselves across from an adjacent doorway.

"You two go down and get all the coolant you can carry. We'll get the shuttle ready."

"Don't dilly dally down there you two, get up here fast... we can only give you... whatcha think, six minutes?" Mils asked Ripley as he looked back.

"Seven." She answered, looking down at her watch.

"Right."

"Come back up here. We'll shut the switches off, and - and we'll blow this _fucker_ off into space!" Ripley said.

"Okay, all right. Come on. Take care of yourself." Parker said, leading Lambert down the ladder.

"We'll be right back... I hope," Lambert replied as she looked at the pair one more time descending the ladder.

"Ready? Seven minutes, you two," Ripley reminded them.

"Alright Rip, let's get going!" Mils said as the two jogged towards the shuttle.

….

Mils and Ripley moved as fast as they safely could without attracting the attention of their unwanted and benighted guest. They finally made it to the shuttle, cautiously moving through the doors with equal stride, and Ripley placed her incinerator nearby as Mils hung his on his shoulder. .

"Okay, Andrew... let's start it up." she encouraged Mils as they approached the pilot and copilot stations.

"I'm right with you... starting wake up protocol." Mils said, typing a command into a nearby console as Ripley flipped on several switches. Outside, the exterior lights of the shuttle began to wink on. The asteroid shield retracted, showcasing the triangular shape of the shuttle.

"Alright, the next step is plotting a course… Lambert said we're still a ways from Earth." Mils sighed in consternation. He was an engineer and a Tac officer, not a navigator. Plus the Narcissus wasn't designed for a long range journey and its hyperdrive would run out of fuel long before reaching Earth.

"What about the outer colonies?" he asked.

Ripley assessed: The nearest inhabited system was of course KG-348 - Seegson had constructed a space station there a few years ago called Sevastopol. Then there was Beta Virginis, but WeyYu was planning to set up a colony there so getting close to WeyYu was probably a bad idea. The less recommended option was going back to Thedus, where they could reunite with Helwig.

"We have a miscalculation and we could be drifting in the Outer Rim for years… Damn, I should have let Lambert chart the course instead of sending her with Parker," Ripley thought aloud, but the damage was done.

"I don't like it, but if it gets us home... I'm all for it..." Mils said as he went to work prepping the cryochambers. He thought about the coming challenge of having to possibly rotate shifts, relying off of a finite amount of food and water, four mouths to worry about... four. Was he forgetting someone?

"Shit..." Mils said as something dawned on him, Ripley meanwhile switched on the ship wide radio.

"Take it easy." Parker's radioed voice came in over the intercom.

"Um... Rip I think we forgot something, or someone."

"Who?" Ripley asked, not paying him that much attention.

"Well..." Mils starts, but his answer is made for him as a radioed meow is heard, catching their attention.

"Jones..." Ripley said.

"Yep..."

"Where could that little shit be?" She asked out loud.

"If I was a betting man, which I am, I would place money on the bridge - he also liked hanging around there. Plenty of places to nap," Mils theorized.

"Then that's where I'm going... stay here." Ripley ordered, but Mils objected right away.

"Oh no, this isn't time for you to be the heroine Ellen..." He said walking up to her, just as she was about to head out the door.

"Someone has to stay behind and keep the shuttle safe... we don't want that thing–" she paused.

"What? Taking off with it... we could only be so lucky."

"This isn't a debate Mils!" Ripley stated, trying to be stern.

"No, you're right, we don't have time for one... Look, Ellen. I'm not losing you, and you're not getting rid of me!" Mils said, closing the gap between them, pressing his head against her. Ripley's heart was pounding in her ears, and Mils was putting his foot down; he cared too much for her to let her go off on a one-woman mission.

"So that's it, huh?!" Ripley asked as Mils nodded.

"We're a team, Ellen."

"You're right... we're a team, now let's go find Jones, and get the hell out of here."

"Right behind you!"

….

Lambert and Parker tag teamed moving the heavy wheeled cart through one of the many warehouse-like storage holds on the _Nostromo_. Parker kept an eye out for the alien, while Lambert tried her dwindling best to keep her cool as they marched through the dark area. It was a perfect location for an alien ambush, and they both knew it. It didn't keep them from summoning up the courage to gather the coolant tanks. They knew the risks involved, but they, like Ripley and Mils, knew they were on the last mile of this other world marathon.

"Alright, there's _Nessie_! She'll have some spare tanks, I'm sure of it!" Parker said as the pair came to a stop. _Nessie_ referred to the ship's hydro-rover, used for traversing across the odd lake or planetary ocean. Kane had given it the name due to how the rover just tended to bob up and down on the water instead of simply gliding across it at points. It also had a radar dome on top in the shape of a long tube, giving the rover the look of the famed Loch Ness Monster.

"Okay, let's see..." Lambert whispered to herself as she brought the large flood light with her, setting it down on Nessie's perch as she climbed into the cockpit. Immediately she spotted the spare tanks hiding in cradles behind the controls. Parker jogged over taking cover next to the _Nessie_'s side.

"We good?" Parker asked silently, getting a nod from Lambert as she handed him one tank after the other. Suddenly, a large hissing sound is heard from close by, causing Parker to jump and prepare himself for confrontation. They both breathed a sigh of much-needed relief when they realized the noise had actually come from the source of their salvation as, in her hurry, Lambert had grabbed one of the tanks by the crank handle, causing it to release high pressured coolant into the atmosphere.

"Jesus, Lambert, made me shit myself!"

"Sorry, wasn't my intention I assure you!"

….

Ripley climbed up the ladder onto A-Deck, with Mils close behind.

"Jones? Jonesy!" Ripley called the cat soothingly, attempting to coax him out of his hiding spot, while Mils headed over to a nearby closet containing pressure suits and a small carrying crate used for transporting the odd pest or vermin, or the occasional mascot, offboard.

"Just his size," Mils mused, picking up the crate and placing it near Ripley, who looked at her friend in question. "I'm not doing this twice," He explained, remembering the last time they went after the cat, which had resulted in Brett's death.

"I see, now come on he should be close by." Ripley answered, leading the way through the corridors near the bridge.

….

Parker and Lambert had finished unloading all the full bottles from _Nessie_, Lambert nodding that she was ready to move the now heavily-laden motor cart.

They continued their crusade for coolant, moving towards a small workshop containing spare bottles and hanging unused pressure suits also with bottles nearby. Parker jumped ahead as the pair shone their floodlights into what revealed itself to be a tight space.

"Okay, check the bottles..." Parker ordered as Lambert hastily moved past him towards a nearby storage locker containing some of their pressurized bounty, himself moving towards the unused pressure suits.

They were keeping the tracker with them for good measure. Though the tracker was flimsy and unreliable at first, Lambert had made some modifications to the one she had, so it wouldn't give out false readings or malfunction like the way ASH had probably intended. In their haste to finish the task, they forgot to position their tracker in an advantageous position. With all the noise around them, unless the tracker was within a few feet, it was impossible to hear it pinging off of anything.

….

Ripley and Mils moved slowly into the bridge corridor, knowing that there were several blind corners that the alien could use to its advantage.

"Jones?" Ripley says cautiously taking her first steps into the dark space.

"Jonesy! Here Jonesy!" Mils repeated placing his back against the wall, giving Ripley a look to indicate that the coast, for now, was clear.

….

Parker and Lambert continued to slide their tanks towards the doorway nearby, moving as fast as they could, knowing that time was of the essence.

"How you doing?" Parker asked as he continued working on the bottles near the unused pressure suits.

"Fine." Lambert answered as she frantically unscrewed the holster on one of the bottles.

…

Ripley drummed her fingers on the metal railing, trying to get Jonesy's attention; she placed her incinerator down as she didn't want any accidents to occur should he startle them.

"Jones? Andrew, anything over there?" Ripley asked, and Mils had come full circle and still hadn't seen sign of his furry friend.

"Nope, he must be near the seats, we made them heated last year remember?" Mils pointed out, Ripley nodding as she ascended the platform leading to the crew section of the bridge.

"Psst psst. Kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty..." Ripley said in as soothing a tone as she could muster at this point as she peered over the chairs and terminals. Mils flanked her on the other side of the crew's chairs.

"Come here, Jones. Come here, it's okay boy… it's alright… meow." Mils said, reflecting back with a pained smile at Brett doing the same thing to get Jones' attention.

"Jones? Come here boy, come here! Nice kitty." Ripley stressed turning around at the more open area of the bridge, looking high and low for Jones. She linked up with Mils, who shrugged his shoulder.

"Maybe he's back at the lockers, or…" Mil started, but is cut off when one of the chairs turns slightly, as if someone had bumped into it, Ripley and Mils glanced at each other.

"Jones? Jones?" Ripley called as they descended down the bridge past consoles, calling the cat's name. Mils and Ripley split up, with Mils taking the left side, and Ripley the right.

"Come here. Come here sweetheart!" Ripley continued calling to him, peering across the distance of one of the chairs before moving down farther. Mils, across the bridge, had gotten down on his hands and knees as he looked under each crew station's console.

"Jones? Jonesy, come on buddy, we gotta get outta here!" Mils said.

Ripley crawled across a pair of chairs...

"Jones! Jones! ahhhh!" Ripley started, but was cut short when Jones dashed out of the chair, hissing along the way and running. This startled Ripley, but Mils quickly grabbed Jones, pick him up in a strong hold.

"Gotcha, ya little shit!" Mils said as Ripley lay her back across the consoles, covering her mouth to hide a few stray sobs that are released involuntarily.

"Jones! Goddamn it!" Ripley quickly moved to the other side of the bridge, she saw Mils holding their mutual friend.

"Oh good... now we've got you!" Ripley said, took him from Mils' arms, holding Jones close in a hug, Mils pets the cat on the head, he places his free hand on Ripley's back as he rests his face in the crook of her neck, himself at his wits end, finding Jones was something they both needed. They both slowly moved away from each other as Ripley rubbed a smear of grime off his face.

"I'll um... check in with Parker and Lambert..." Mils offered as Ripley silently nodded, taking Jones and placing him inside the crate as the feline growled his protestation.

"Here, sweetie. Nice kitty," She sweet-talked the cat as she closed the crate shut.

"Parker? We've got the shuttle primed and ready to go, have you got the coolant tanks ready?" Mils asked a few seconds later he got a response from Parker.

"We're doing it, wanna give us a hand down here?" He asked.

"Sounds like a plan; we'll make our way to you." Mils responded.

….

Lambert continued frantically tossing bottles inside the duffel bag, each one clanking against the grated floor. She was aware that she was making a lot of noise, but her body was shaking uncontrollably and she couldn't help it. The flashlight slipped from where it had been placed and rolled on the floor. The beam of light cast shadows on the nearby wall, and then Lambert froze.

There it was.

Among the dangling chains was another shadow, one of a humanoid body and an elongated head. She searched for the source of the shadow and saw the nightmare creature, watching her through those empty sockets behind a semi-translucent dome. She began to tremble uncontrollably and crouched against the wall. The creature approached her, the source of all terror, crawling with its legs and long tail in front.

"Oh my God…" Parker exclaimed. He had turned to see Lambert when he stopped listening to the noise of the bottles, and saw with horror as the creature uncurled from the floor, rising in front of the navigator. First its tail uncurled, straightening and stiffening as it pointed at Lambert in a grotesque parody of a phallus. Then the rest of the monster uncurled to its full height, every square centimeter of its carapace promising death and torment. Lambert was sobbing against the wall, terrified beyond all rationality, all thought of self-defense or self-preservation driven away by the absolute certainty that she could neither run, hide or fight, and that the alien was going to kill her here, at its leisure.

He aimed the incinerator, ready to fry the beast, but Lambert was in the way.

"Get out of the way Lambert!" Parker yelled, so loudly that it registered up in the bridge, getting both Ripley and Mils' attention.

"No... OH GOD!" Mils exclaimed, looking at Ripley as the pair dashed over to the nearest radio.

"I can't get out of the way!" Lambert sobbed.

"Get out of the way, Lambert, it's here to kill us!" Parker insisted.

"I _CAN'T_!" she moaned.

"Lambert, for Christ's sakes, get out of the way!" Parker continued shouting, Mils and Ripley listening with worried ears.

"Lambert–" Ripley began.

"We don't have time Ripley!" Mils said grabbing and preparing his incinerator.

The alien stood tall over Lambert, she gasped a silent "NO" and the beast prepared to attack.

"_GET OUT OF THE WAY, LAMBERT_!" Parker yelled at the top of his lungs, as Lambert began to finally fall into a despair filled cry.

"Lambert? Lambert? Parker!" Ripley called, almost breathless, as she soon came to realize that the moment they had all tried to postpone had arrived, and the alien was coming for them now.

Parker wanted to slaughter the beast here and now, but with Lambert in the way it was impossible for him to fire his incinerator. With the certain knowledge that there was no choice and in an act of either bravery or pure desperation, he didn't know which, he grabbed the nearest thing that could do damage to the alien, looking quickly and noticing a sharp hook hanging from the ceiling. This particular kind of hook was used for hanging heavy suits, so he knew it was strong enough and sharp enough to do some kind of damage to the alien. He charged ahead with all the speed he could muster, hoping to slam the hook into the bastard's scrawny neck, but just as he was about to puncture the alien, it smacked him hard into the nearest wall with its surprising strong, long tail.

"Come on Ellen! We've gotta help em!" Mils cried running towards the nearest door, Ripley promptly followed.

"Oh my God! Andrew, wait!" Ripley says she picks up both her incinerator and Jones' basket.

The alien turned its attention to Parker, pinning him against a wall. Parker fought futilely against the powerful beast that had taken him by the arms. The engineer struggled to free himself, screaming in either pain or defiance or both, but the Alien was far too strong, and its cold, insanely strong grip dislocated his arms, splashing blood over both of them. The creature brought its eyeless face close to Parker and a sticky, crystalline slime ran down the engineer's face.

The strangely human mouth opened. Inside, another mouth, with chrome steel fangs, opened and closed as it slowly extended out, ready to kill...

Mils slammed the open button on the door in front of him; it opened slowly with a screech, until it jammed halfway open.

"Oh...come on! _CHRIST, COME ON_!" Mils yelled as he slammed his palm into the button multiple times, he crouched through small opening, turning towards Ripley.

"Come on Rip! Slide him over!" Mils ordered as Ripley slid Jones' crate through the opening.

"Go on Andrew! I'll catch up!" Ripley yelled.

"I'm not leaving you behind! Come on!" Mils yelled as he helped her through the tight window of space, and they ran towards the nearest ladder, Mils now behind Ripley as he carried both his incinerator and Jones' crate. They moved down the ladder, and Ripley checked on their surroundings.

"Okay, they'll be this way here. Here, give me Jones, we should leave him here for now!" Ripley said.

"Seriously? We just found him!"

"There's no time to argue, now go... I'll catch up!" Ripley yelled, as Mils cursed silently to himself, running down the hall.

"I'll be right back sweetie." Ripley cooled as she followed Mils footsteps.

"GET OUT OF THE ROOM!" Parker yelled one more time to Lambert, the second jaw shot out with lightning speed and everything went dark.

Instead of fleeing, Lambert continued to cry in shock and terror. The alien finished with the engineer and marched back to Lambert slowly; it stared down at her like before as it slid its tail in between her legs.

Lambert cried out loudly as the alien attacked her, Mils and Ripley just ran as fast as they could.

Lambert's cries and muffled screams filled the corridors, they were unlike anything the two of them had heard before, a mixture of grunts, hyperventilating, horrified screaming and moaning.

Was the alien toying with its prey?

Ripley just kept her eyes on Mils' moving form in front of her as best she could as fresh sweat dripped down into her eyes. Mils increased his pace, fearful for his friends' fates, trying not to listen to the sounds around him.

"We're coming! Lambert! We're coming!"

A loud harmonic scream of both Lambert and the alien was heard, before an eerie silence entered the space of the ship. Mils and Ripley looked at each other, worried beyond all hope at the state of their crew mates. Mils jogged ahead, incinerator at the ready, before spotting the cart that Parker and Lambert were using. What he sees next makes him fall to the floor in despair, and anger.

Ripley slowly and cautiously approaches the same workshop, looking around in a slight panic for the crewmates.

"Parker? Lambert? Andrew! What? What is it?" Ripley asked, but she got her answer when she peered over Mils' shoulders and shuddered as she saw Parker's body. The corpse was forcibly placed inside a ventilation duct close to the ground, the arms, legs and head outside; eyes open staring at the floor and a massive puncture wound in his head, blood pouring out of it like a river. Worse, Ripley covered her mouth, containing the urge to vomit. Lambert's naked body hung from the chains, one leg pinned up and the other dangling free, like a side of beef on a freezer hook. Blood ran freely down from her ruined vagina and dripped onto the grated floor.

"Ohhhh…." She continued to shudder in horror. Mils just sat on his knees, not wanting to know what the alien had done to Lambert. His body was numb.

"Come on Andrew, we can't..." Ripley said, sobbing.

"I know... I know." Mils said.

Ripley understood what Ash had told them, the creature was a perfect killing machine. Parker had refrained from killing the beast because he didn't want to kill Lambert, but the alien didn't have that problem. It did what he had to do to survive; the moral problems of killing another human being were nonexistent to it, and would never occur to such a being.

It would not find such a concept alien. It would never find such a concept at all.

She pondered the question for herself somehow - if need be, would she be able to sacrifice Mils?

She shook her head to remove that thought "No. Not now that I have feelings for him. That's what make us humans, without that, we're no better than the Alien."

Ripley took a deep breath and helped the young tactical officer up from the floor. There was only one thing left to do, disable the reactor's cooling system and blow up the ship. It would not be necessary to take the oxygen and extra food and the shuttle had enough space for both.

They began to run as fast as they could towards the stern of the ship and the engine room and reactor compartment. ASH's perfect organism could be anywhere, they both realized. The creature that the Company had coveted so greatly had reduced the Nostromo crew to a scared pair of fear-stricken, instinct-driven officers who were now determined to destroy the beast forever.

That is, if they survived….


	11. Author Update

**Author Update **

…

Hello everyone!

Firstly, hope all of you are staying safe, and healthy out there in this crazy world right now.

Secondly, to answer the big question. NO! This is not one of those updates where the author announces that their story has been put on hiatus.

In fact, I'm happy to announce that the story is almost done, but with the pandemic going on, both myself and my two beta readers have been very busy.

Now, I can't say exactly how it's going for them, but for me it's been pretty hectic. I work at a grocery store, so I've been pretty busy. Plus, here in the United States, more specifically in Ohio, all schools have to be done online, and that has made for a very hectic final semester of college.

With that said, again we're almost done with Alien: Not Alone. What comes next, well after this fic is finished, I'll probably take a break.

For now though, the future is yours.

What, I mean by that is I'm opening up a poll on what the next story I do will be.

Head on over to this link below:

www,strawpoll,me/19858059 (changed the commas to periods)

I'll be checking back to see the results in May, the last chapter should be posted by then.

In the meantime, stay safe, and be healthy.

See you soon EAP404 😊


	12. Chapter 10: A Race Against Time

Alien (1979) is owned by Disney/20th Century Fox.

Novelisation owned by Alan Dean Foster and Titan Books.

Original characters are owned by me.

Beta'd by AlphaLima1980

Gamma'd by DarthTenebrus

**Alien: Not Alone**

**Chapter 10: A Race against Time**

Death.

Death is an inevitable part of life, but something most people don't deal with on a regular basis unless they enter into a certain career field, like a doctor, or a soldier. However, for those who worked on ships like the _Nostromo_, death was rare - a part of the job, but not one of its more commonly reoccurring themes.

Things could not have been more different just now. There was a hostile, lethal, and near-perfect alien life form on board the ship. It had killed Kane when it was born. It had slain Brett, Parker, and even Captain Dallas with ease, and it had mutilated and especially violated Lambert without mercy.

Of the original eight-person crew, only two humans remained now aboard ship, and they were running for their lives like hunted deer across the metallic forest that was the _Nostromo_. They both ran, high on adrenaline laced with fear, and on lingering horrific thoughts at the fact that they were the only ones left. In other words, they were the only ones now that the alien would have its eyes on.

Only their panting breath, the rustling of their incinerators against their bodies, and their footsteps filled the dark hallway around them. They hung a sharp left into the control room where lay the means to begin the self-destruct sequence. Upon reaching the large compartment, Ripley leaned on the doorway sliding down using the incinerator to slow her fall, while Mils remained still, the horrific images of Parker and Lambert's corpses flashing like a camera shutter across his mind.

His stomach couldn't take any more of the fear and the tension, and he moved across the engine room to throw up into a nearby waste bin. Ripley slowly made her way towards her friend, pressing her hand and eventually her whole body against Mils in a calming hug. She couldn't help but notice, however, that Mils was shaking badly. Was he cold? No, he was crying. Andrew Mils, the bravest man she had so far known, a man she would willingly risk her own life to save, had finally broken down. He wasn't sobbing uncontrollably, but he was letting the involuntary silent cries come out. Ripley herself let a few silent sobs exit her lips as she let a few stray tears fall from her own eyes.

They were alone. They were the only ones left.

After a few seconds, Ripley broke the silence, taking note of Mils' strong, yet hurried heartbeat.

"Andrew, we need to do this," she said softly, "for them. For all of them." Mils coughed a few times and spit out the remainder of the bile in his stomach, taking a long, shuddering breath to steady and steel him. In a moment, he nodded his assent, after confirming for himself that he was again alert and settled. A breath later, he steeled and steadied himself, determined once again to help his beloved Ellen put an end to their mutual horror.

"Yeah, I'm - I'm ready, let's do this, Ellen... we need to." Mils stood up with Ripley next to him, he peered down into her brown eyes, the emotions therein mirroring his. They were the same - they were both tired, hurt, and desperate to end this deadly nightmare.

"Let's finish this!" Ripley said with finality.

"Yes ma'am!" Mils acknowledged grimly as they moved over to a panel on the wall containing four security levers and covered by a bolted-in glass window, with a system override mechanism next to it.

"By the way, you've got a strong heartbeat," Ripley pointed out with a smile, the first she realized she had allowed herself since they recovered Kane with the facehugger attached to him.

"Well, I've fallen in love recently..." Mils responded, causing Ripley to blush brightly. She quickly pressed a release button next to the override mechanism allowing the protective door to pop open and grabbed the lever inside to activate the emergency override. A minor rapid beeping then began, almost like the emergency sirens were getting warmed up, they both mused.

Mils quickly turned, removing the protective glass after removing the screws holding it in place, and for a moment they regarded the four levers in front of them.

"Okay Rip, this will go faster if we do it together, alright? You take right, I'll take left. Ready?" Mils said.

"On three!" Ripley nodded.

"One, two, three!" Mils counted as they pulled down the tense levers, grunting with the effort that cost them what strength they had left. Mils and Ripley were so tired that they wondered for a moment, perhaps in fear, that their arms might break from straining against the heavy tension in the levers. Luckily they finally pulled down the first pair.

"Next one? Okay, one, two, three!" Ripley replied breathlessly.

They groaned against the strain, and the second pair of levers came down fully, almost reluctantly, they figured. A square metallic hatch opened up on the floor with a loud squeal. The mechanism had never been used, for obvious reasons, and disuse and dust had made the hinges creaky.

Ripley strode over and went down on her knees to peer at the instructions, printed in English, French and Japanese, which detailed in the scuttling procedure the necessary sequence to initiate an emergency detonation. Mils kneeled besides her with the incinerator ready.

"Oh right, Mils, again: How does this work?" Ripley asked the engineer.

"This will deactivate the main reactor's cooling system," Mils explained. "See, the reactor has helium-liquid nitrogen mix flowing directly around the magnetic coiling, cooling it. Without it, the magnets will take about ten minutes to heat to the point in which they cause a meltdown, and then the uncontrollable fusion reaction turns the core into a miniature sun, destroying the ship in a nuclear fireball… basically."

Ripley stared at him with wide-opened eyes.

"How much time before that happens?" She asked.

"Like I said. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes," Mils told her. "If we aren't on the shuttle by then, we'll be scuttled along with the ship."

"Alright, let's get started then..." Ripley said. She typed the sequence of symbols in the keypad. After that, the instructions directed them to insert four bolt keys into their respective cylinders. The warning said this was designed to avoid an accidental activation.

The automated self-destruction was installed on every ship as a last resort in case of an act of piracy - a captain would destroy the ship and cargo before someone could hijack it. The ship and cargo were insured and the company would only lose a small percentage of the total value.

She grabbed the first bolt and screwed it into its subsequent hole, pulling by the head to raise the long cylinder up fully. She slid a hemispherical section of it open, and pressed a button inside to activate the cylinder. She did this for the next two bolts, hushing back a tear or the odd sob as it hit her how far things had gone.

When she picked up the final bolt, she dropped it, but she didn't pick it up right away - perhaps her brain had finally quit on her. However Mils utilized his height from nearby, and pressed his body against Ellen's from behind, reaching over her shoulders and grabbing the bolt to place it in her hand before placing his hand on top of hers as they both tightened the final bolt into place, Ripley went to work, raising the cylinder and pressing the final button.

Almost on cue, an alarm blared and MUTHER announced:

"DANGER. THE EMERGENCY DESTRUCT SYSTEM IS NOW ACTIVATED. THE SHIP WILL DETONATE IN T-MINUS 10 MINUTES."

All monitors around the ship came on, showing a flashing red X and a countdown.

The pair looked at each other before running out of the room as it began to fill with steam.

MUTHER warned again.

"THE OPTION TO OVERRIDE AUTOMATIC DETONATION EXPIRES IN T-MINUS FIVE MINUTES."

"_Five minutes,_" Ellen thought. That was the time before the meltdown would be irreversible.

"Come on, Ellen, no time to wait!" Mils yelled after seeing Ripley falter and pause for a second.

"We can make an exit through the central storage area." They moved as sprightly as they could considering the ship had now less than ten minutes before it along with them would turn into a cloud of molten slag.

They arrived at the ladder leading to the storage area.

"Okay, here we go." Mils said and stepped aside so Ripley could climb first.

"Andrew? If we come across that thing, we can't hesitate..." She said, remembering how Parker and Lambert were so horribly murdered by that thing. Knowing how Lambert had died, she couldn't conceive any reason why the alien would need to kill them. It was not a simple, clean kill in order to survive. Parker couldn't kill that thing without frying Lambert along with it, and Lambert was simply unarmed and terrified to face it. It was senseless, needless. It was murder, simple as it got.

"I know, and I won't..." He responded, unsure if he'll do it, if it was the case.

"Even if it grabs me, you can't hesitate… Not for a second!" Ripley noticed the man's reluctance, but Mils couldn't stop thinking - could he do it? Could he kill the alien, even if it meant knowingly hurting or God forbid killing Ripley?

"Promise me Andrew!" Ripley yelled, furiously grasping his collar.

"I promise, Ellen, but it'll never come to that! I'll promise that as well!" Mils agreed, Ripley brings him in close for a quick kiss.

"Good, I promise too…" Ripley says as Mils hurriedly moves down the ladder first, lowering himself into the large space, with Ripley joining him a moment after.

"Do you remember it being warm in here?" Ripley asked as she wiped her forehead to combat the sudden humidity.

"No, it was always kept cool on purpose; it's too close to the purifiers." Mils responded, causing them both to look at each other with worry.

"I don't like this Andrew. Be ready."

"Yes ma'am… I'm right behind..." Mils begins, but was interrupted by a nearby groan. It didn't sound alien at all, but something else, something more… human. . It came from inside a maintenance hatch on the right wall.

"Andrew, c'mon. We don't have time," Ripley hurried the engineer.

"There's something in there," Andrew protested. If the creature was there, in a cramped maintenance access, he could easily kill it and then they still would have time to cancel the self-destruct sequence. He stepped inside followed by Ripley.

In the pale light cast by the flamethrower, they saw a strange material strung along the wall like a cobweb of flesh and bone, all resembling the alien in design.

"Jesus, what is this Andrew?" Ripley touched the substance. It felt smooth, yet rigid at the same time, and it was wet with humidity and what had to have been the creature's secretions.

"It looks a lot like that thing; maybe it's been staying here..." Mils suggested, poking it with his finger and wiping off the gelatinous slime that came away onto his pants leg. "Please tell me we didn't just find its nest or something?"

"Yeah... I don't like this, it could be here..." Ripley started, but another groan shut her up.

They moved forward cautiously, weapons ready in case the creature attacked them from the shadows. The space was cramped, but the biomechanical appearance of the black jelly covering the walls made the perfect camouflage for the creature, and they didn't have the motion sensor now, they have discarded it due to interference by multiple jets of vapor filling the overheating pipes.

Ripley was about to tell Mils there was nothing there and they had to hurry when a hand sprung from the wall behind her, startling the frightened woman.

"Riipleeeeeeey…" a voice called. They turned around and looked up in horror.

Both survivors had learned at last what the creature had done to Dallas. The Captain was glued to the wall by the resin-like substance. One of his arms was dislocated and the other broken, in a brutish attempt to stick him in a maintenance panel. Blood slipped from the wounds down to the floor, staining his clothes.

"Oh my god... Dallas!" Mils exclaimed, horrified.

"Oh no… Oh God… Dallas!" Ripley seconded, sobbing. "We're going to get you out of there! Hang on!" and she tried to break the resin.

"K-kiiiiiiiill meeeeeeee…." Dallas muttered, struggling against what had to be unendurable pain to say a word.

"W –what? No… no! We can get you out –!" Ripley cried, she was incapable of leaving a friend behind.

"Kiiilllllllll mmeeeeeeee…." Dallas just repeated.

"What?! No… Why? What did it do to you?" Ripley asked.

"B-Brett –" Dallas responded weakly, and he just pointed with his stare to the wall in front. Ripley and Mils witnessed another act of the creature's horror show.

"Is t-that Brett?" Mils whispered in horror. He had seen the technician's corpse in one of the ventilation ducts, back when they had tried to flush the creature out of the airlock, but the alien must have brought him here after that. The poor guy was reduced now to a fleshy, pale brown egg-like object. His head was still visible on the object's upper part, but his skull had opened in a four petal flower fashion, just like the ones Mils had seen on the derelict… just like the one the Lovecraftian beast had come from. Just now he noticed a well-known spidery creature beneath Dallas' feet, curled like a dead cockroach.

"That's the way i-it does it… all those eggs on the derelict." Mils exclaimed.

"What can we do?" Ripley pleaded with her captain sorrowfully, hoping to save him yet fearing that in doing so, they would still lose him. She looked in Dallas' eyes - they were glazed, suggesting that even if they freed him from his cocoon, the pain he was enduring might never end.

"MERRRRCYYYY!" Dallas moaned. To him it was a scream of agony, but the agony itself, the soul-rending torment of his metamorphosis had weakened his voice.

Ripley and Mils looked painfully at each other and then at their captain. There were tears in their eyes, but they had promised none of them would suffer the same fate as the others.

The same as Kane.

Mils reached up and gently laid a hand on his former captain's shoulder. "This won't last, Dallas," he said, and then he stood back, and the couple readied their flamethrowers.

As they fired, Mils imagined he had seen Dallas whisper "Thank you…." just before the flames began to consume his body. Mils then set fire to the rest of the creature's nest, engulfing the place, Brett's corpse and Captain Dallas in a blazing inferno. His only regret was that the creature wasn't there too.

After that, they rushed towards the shuttle. Time was running out.

….

Ripley slowly raised her head as she gripped the edge of the deck plate near the ladder. Jones' crate still sat where she and Mils had left him. She climbed the rest of the way onto the deck and took up a squatting position, aiming her incinerator in multiple directions, rightfully paranoid. She looked towards Mils as he marched up towards her on the ladder.

"Come on Andrew, come on!" Ripley urged as she grabbed his hand and pulled him up and over the metallic frame. She grabbed Jones' crate and moved down the corridor with Mils in tow. Instinctually she looked back to her friend as he jogged after her.

"Don't worry about me, Ripley - eyes front, come on! Three minutes and counting!" Mils yelled as he trotted behind her, just as MUTHUR made another announcement.

THE OPTION TO OVERRIDE AUTOMATIC DETONATION EXPIRES IN T-MINUS… THREE MINUTES.

"I know!" Mils silently cursed as he and Ripley hugged the wall to move around the corner, cautiously peering their bugged out eyes around the corner as they edged carefully towards the entrance to the shuttle.

The alien popped its head up from a seated position and spun around quickly towards them. Moving backwards faster than she ever thought she could, Ripley dropped Jones' crate silently and plastered her whole body against the wall. Mils pressed his body against Ripley, placing a hand against her mouth. Though she most likely wouldn't have screamed, Mils was just being precautionary.

"Shhh..." Mils says, as he prepared himself.

"No… no… no!" Ripley thought. Their only means of escape and the creature was right in the way!

"We're going to run...get ready..." Mils whispered, carefully removing his hand as Ripley slid backward along the wall, keeping her eyes pointed like lasers towards the beast's direction. Mils crouched down and slowly followed her lead as the pair both point their incinerators towards its location.

Their fight-or-flight instincts went instantly into order, neither of them daring to breathe or take their eyes away for an instant from the direction of the shuttle airlock until they passed into the next section of the corridor, then they both turned as one and ran down the corridor in the opposite direction. Jones cast his gaze around in terror from within his carrying case, knowing with a cat's instinctive knowledge that a predator was watching him, as the alien stared down with curiosity for a moment before slamming its clawed hand into the crate, knocking it and Jones across the corridor into the wall with all of its hatred.

They both hurried down the ladder back to the compartment where the emergency detonation controls were housed.

THE OPTION TO OVERRIDE AUTOMATIC DETONATION EXPIRES IN T-MINUS ONE MINUTE.

"Let's go, move it! I've got you covered!" Mils yelled as they charged through the steam-filled corridor and back into the engine room. Ripley slid next to the controls and quickly read the instructions to abort the destruct sequence.

29... 28... 27... 26... 25...

Ripley typed as fast as she could, and then she turned off the switches inside the cylinders before forcing the cylinders back down into their holes.

16... 15... 14… 13... 12... 11... 10 SECONDS.

"Oh God… We're running out of time! Help me Andrew!" Ripley yelled. Mils pressed down his hands over hers pushing down the last of the cylinders

"Goddammit!" Mils shouted as he sprinted over towards the levers. He pulled them back upward with angry grunts as Ripley runs over to help him, the tension in each lever seeming to have increased in proportion to the countdown as MUTHER steadily droned on.

9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2... 1.

THE OPTION TO OVERIDE DETONATION PROCEDURE HAS NOW EXPIRED.

Ripley and Mils ignored this message, as there might be a delay in the response. Ripley took matters into her own hands as per usual.

"MUTHUR! We've turned the cooling unit back on! MUTHUR!" Ripley yelled out, but Mils stopped her. It might have taken a moment for the cooling unit to kick in and reduce the temperature in the magnets, and thus the steam pressure. At least the noise would have lessened by that point.

"Ugh, Ellen?" He pointed out to her with a fearful voice as he stared at the sight before him on the screens above.

The countdown had not stopped. Neither had the alarms.

"THE SHIP WILL AUTOMATICALLY DESTRUCT IN T-MINUS 5 MINUTES," MUTHUR intoned, confirming their worst fears as though she were simply reporting the weather on Earth or one of the colony worlds.

Ripley and Mils looked to each other as they felt nothing but despair enter their bodies. They had been so close, but now, because of nothing more than piss-poor timing, an accident of fate, they no longer had any choice - they had to get through the alien or die trying. In only a moment they saw white-hot anger enter each other's expression, and Ripley's body filled with rage at the supercomputer's involuntary refusal to abort the detonation.

"_YOU__**BITCH**__**! **__**RAAAAAAAAARGH**__**! **_"Ripley roared as she swung her incinerator like a sledgehammer into the nearest monitor, destroying the screen with a satisfying explosion of sparks and smoke.

"OH SHIT! Ellen, calm down! Calm down!" Mils yelled as he grabbed her incinerator turned bludgeon.

"Sorry! I'm sorry, I just - "Ripley began, but was silenced by a kiss from Mils.

"I know, believe me, but that won't buy us any more time. And if we move right the fuck now we can still make it!" He added as he readied himself.

"You're right... we can still do this, and if we run into that thing, we fucking waste it..."

"Damn straight, let's do this Rip!" Mils yelled as he led Ripley out of the compartment. They moved as fast as they could through the deteriorating ship, the corridors increasingly filling with steam, fire, yellow emergency lights and the blaring of alarm bells.

"You bitch! Goddamn it!" Ripley yelled as the pair ran for their lives.

"I second that opinion MUTHUR!" Mils echoed, as if he thought the AI might have been listening, though he knew neither of them cared at this point. He climbed up the ladder roughly, reaching the next deck where he breathed slowly and launched himself onto the deck with a grunt. He stood back up quickly as Ripley joined him, more cautious than ever as they were hyperaware that the steam-filled hallways gave the alien a perfect environment in which to ambush them. The mist made visibility almost zero, the flame guiding their way, as all other forms of navigation seem to go away at that moment, Mils and Ripley hugged the same bulkhead they were just on before, worried that the alien might be near.

"We would've seen it by now, right?" Mils asked silently, Ripley shook her head. They move down the hallway, and spotted something on the floor, Jones' crate, tipped over, but intact.

"Jonesy!" Ripley said, grabbing the cat's cradle, and lifting it up with a grunt. Mils jumped ahead of her, dodging a small spurt of flame from nearby.

"Jesus! There go my eyebrows... come on!" Mils replied with mild surprise as they moved through the airlock where the shuttle was docked. Ripley and Mils took note of the alien's absence, though they didn't ponder on it long as the hallway behind them began to fill with flame, a sign to them that the end was near.

"Go, go, go!" Ripley yelled as she moved near the hatch connecting the airlock with the shuttle, and as she threw Jones' crate into the doorway, Mils was knocked down when a burst of flame came near him a little too closely for comfort, knocking the incinerator.

"ANDREW!" Ripley shouted, looking back in fear as he met her gaze, and from the look she saw in his eyes, he had a sick feeling in the pit of his gut, a deep suspicion that his death might be near.

"Go, Ellen! Go!" Mils yelled as Ripley looked between the man she loved and guaranteed safety. Her heart chose for her, though, and she ran back into the airlock to help Mils up.

"I'm not letting death have you before me, mister!" Ripley yelled, causing Mils to chuckle lightly in relief, and as the pair hurried inside the shuttle, Ripley hit the button closing the inner and outer hatches to the airlock. They caught their breath, leaning against the wall as MUTHUR interrupted them, the computer's voice not as loud, but no less clear inside the confines of the _Narcissus_.

"YOU HAVE NOW ONE MINUTE TO ABANDON SHIP."

Ripley threw Jones's crate inside the shuttle with a grunt as she barreled her way inside.

"Oh, thank you Captain Obvious! I didn't realize that!" Mils yelled at the computer as the pair moved to the nearest chairs next to each other.

"THE SHIP WILL AUTOMATICALLY DESTRUCT IN T-MINUS ONE MINUTE."

Ripley and Mils worked frantically, going through the final pre-launch checks of their departure.

"Engines activated!" Ripley stated, after typing a command.

"Tethers and clamps released!" Mils added. The shuttle was released from the ship, and the shuttle's evacuation program forced the forward reaction control thrusters to expel gas at 450% of its normal operating capacity, propelling the tiny craft away from its mothership and out of the hyperspace envelope as the _Nostromo_ continued her course at full speed. The shuttle shook as the two officers stared up at the seemingly endless underbelly of the ship and the refinery.

"T-MINUS 30 SECONDS… 29… 28… 27…"

Mils and Ripley tightened their seatbelts.

"Hey, we gave it a hell of a run..." Mils said with a tear filled smile. Ripley held out her hand for his, and he obliged her.

"25… 24… 23… 22… 21… 20…" The computer continued the countdown on the shuttle's speakers.

"19… 18… 17… 16…"

The shuttle finally reached the aft end of the ship and its cargo. As the silhouette of the _Nostromo_ and her towed refineries got smaller and smaller, the timer got closer and closer to detonation.

"15… 14… 13… 12… 11… 10 SECONDS… Nine… eight… Seven… Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… One."

Finally the ship exploded, taking the refinery with it in a massive explosion that illuminated the shuttle with a blinding white light. Ripley and Mils closed their eyes tightly and prepared for the worst as the blast wave hit them, shaking the shuttle violently. They rode it out until it was over and acknowledged their mutual surprise, as the shuttle remained intact just outside the blast radius. They opened their tired eyes slowly, daring to see if they still lived, just as another shockwave hit them, this one stronger and brighter. Mils' yells were drowned out by the sound of the explosion, and even in his fear some tiny part of him wondered how he was able to hear the blast in the vacuum of interstellar space, as a third and final explosion marked the climax, and the pair looked at the strangely beautiful sight of the fiery walls coming towards them, yet still fairly far away.

After what felt like an eternity, they stared at the spot where the ship and cargo were just a few moments prior, as a purple haze sank into the depths of space, as it slowly becomes a shade of dark blue. There was no debris, no bodies, nothing to mark the existence of the commercial star freighter _USCSS Nostromo_. One minute it was there, the next it wasn't, as though the ship, her cargo, and her crew aside from Ripley and Mils never were. As though the creature that hounded them since LV-426 had never been.

But it had. The ship had existed, the thing they picked up had killed their crew, and it had been on board when the ship exploded. It had lived, and they had finally killed it.

"I got you...you son of a bitch." Ripley whispered, looking outside the viewport into the emptiness, and then sighed in victory and relief. She looked over at Mils, someone who was rarely quiet, and the man still was keeping his eyes closed, holding on to her hand tightly. She silently let go, and unbuckled herself, making her way over to his chair, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Mhm... Ellen, are we dead?" he asked.

"No... We actually made it, both of us..." she dared to smile.

"You sure? Cause I'm looking at an angel..." Mils said with a tired smirk, and Ripley responded by placing a kiss on his forehead.

"After everything, you're still a shameless flirt Andrew." Ripley says with a smirk herself.

"Well, I'd think I earned it. Come on," he suggested, "we're not the only ones who have been through some shit." Mils unbuckled himself as he and Ripley moved around the corner towards Jones' crate. Ripley opened it up and the cat immediately leaped into her arms, meowing loudly and grateful in his own way that the terror had ended.

"Shhhhhh… shh it's okay, it's over." Ripley said, rubbing Jones' head and back. Mils approached from nearby, comforting his feline friend. Ripley flicked a switch, causing the nearby cryochamber to light up and open slowly with a hum of electric motors. Ripley crouched down, with Mils sitting on the edge of the chamber.

"Now what, Andrew? I mean, for better or worse, this is our home for the next few weeks." Ripley asked, looking around.

"Well," Mils shrugged slowly, "I mean it's not all bad, plus we'll be sleeping most of the time. As for when we get back to... wherever… I'd say we first need to be thinking about kids..."

Ripley turned towards him in mock disgust. "ANDREW! We haven't even started dating..." Ripley said with a much-needed laugh.

He smiled amusedly at her. "Not what I meant, we need to make sure our kids are taken care of... but for now let's just worry about our feline friend, then we try getting some shut eye," Mils replied as Ripley prepared to hand the cat to him.

"All right, it's nice to see you, too... It's okay." Ripley soothed the cat, handing him off to Mils, who gladly took him and placed him in the chamber. Ripley pressed a switch to close the cryotube, wondering whether or not Jones had used the toilet. They'd never kept a litter pan on board the _Nostromo_, and there was no point in making sure to pick up after him with a hostile alien life form present. After three weeks in cryostasis, Ripley imagined there would be an urgent need for them all to find a toilet, not just Jones.

"Well, I'm gonna get my freezerino ready. See if you can find a change of clothes, 'cause I think we need it." Mils sighed in relief and catharsis as he crossed over to his cryochamber opposite to Ripley's. Ripley herself walked over to the closet containing the space suits, which she imagined they probably wouldn't need, and she found a couple of sleeping robes.

"Better than nothing, I guess..." Ripley sighed aloud, walking over to the cryochamber she and Jones would be sharing, wondering if there might be enough room for Mils.

"Well, Rip? Did you find anything?" Mils asked from around the corner.

"Yes, robes." Ripley said, removing her jumpsuit and top shirt.

"Robes? Great, guess it'll work…" Mils says as Ripley finally takes her entire jumpsuit off revealing her white, corporate panties. Mils moved from around the corner to catch his eyes on Ripley's partially nude body, and he quickly turned away to hide his blushing face. Ripley turned around to see this, and smirked while shaking her head.

"Seriously? After everything we've been through, you're reverting back to your old rule? That is so weird." She was amazed, and if she was honest with herself, maybe even slightly offended, that Mils would still look away from her while she was in a state of undress.

"Nothing weird about it, Rip, just being a gentleman..." Mils replied defensively, and in response Ripley walked up from behind and wrapped her long arms around his shoulders, pressing her breasts against his back.

"Well, you're gonna have to get used to this sight if you want to make this work, Mr. Mils." Ripley whispered in his ear.

"Okay, I give. We've been through much worse, after all..." Mils sighed, turning around. Seeing her statuesque beauty, and her smiling face, so smooth despite her years that it seemed masklike and below her neckline the swells of her breasts under the collar of her shirt, and her long legs topped by slender yet supple hips, he had to admit, there were much less pleasant sights in the galaxy.

"Wow, I could definitely get used to it indeed," Mils finally agreed, to which Ripley walked up and planted a kiss on his lips.

"Then hurry up, I'm waiting..." Ripley smiled as she padded barefoot back across the shuttle to adjust a few functions nearby. Mils took off his _Nostromo_ jacket Ripley tossed her shirt off, revealing a cutoff white tank top.

She had thrown her hair tie away too, not needing it. She reached and adjusted the temperature controls, cooling the interior of the shuttle as the heating system would cause essential energy to be diverted, and with the cryochambers being self-sustaining, they didn't need it to be a sauna in the shuttle.

When she moved to increase the temperature in the pipes, she noticed a smooth cylinder nearby. It was odd - for a moment she recognized something familiar on it, but she ignored it and continued with her task.

Ripley let out a short scream when the creature's black hand, a hand with four fingers and two opposable thumbs, shot out from the where the cylinder lay, . She covered her mouth with her hands, not daring to scream or even breathe, and slowly backed away. As the rest of the cylinder began to tilt toward her, one end opening wide to reveal gleaming chrome steel teeth, she realized the odd-looking pipe was in fact the creature's head.

"Ellen? What's wrong?" Mils asked but quickly spotted the beast, curled amidst a bunch of cables and pipes. How did either of them not notice it before? He watched the alien extend its inner jaw, opened it and then retracted it again inside its mouth, in either a grotesque imitation of a yawn or an effort to sniff the air around it.

_It must have been sleeping_, Mils thought, _the bastard had somehow stowed away on the shuttle to take a nap and escaped with us_.

He grabbed Ripley and ran with her into the closet at what he guessed had to have been lightning speed. At the last second, though, he pushed Ripley into the closet and closed the hatch behind her, remaining just outside.

"Andrew?! Come on!" she said, whispering.

"No, we gotta deal with this fucker. I'm gonna buy you some time... " Mils said as he smashed a glass panel labeled IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS, and grabbed the hatchet within.

"What?! Andrew, what are you gonna do?!" Ripley asked.

"Buying you time! Trust me!" Mils placed his hand against the cabinet glass, and both stared as the beast before them stretched its body parts. "I know you're a fast thinker, don't let me down, babe."

"Ok, ok, but don't do anything crazy," Ripley responded quickly. The last thing Ripley wanted was Mils attacking the alien with a hatchet hand to hand only for its acid blood spill and burn a hole through the hull of their tiny craft. He might kill the thing, but they'd both suffocate from the subsequent lack of atmosphere. Decompression was a bitch. "I'll come up with something; just don't use that fucking hatchet!"

Ripley looked around the cramped space of the closet. There was nothing there besides an environment suit and a grappling gun. She could use them in case of decompression, but Mils didn't have one - he would be dead in seconds.

_Desperate times require desperate measures_, she thought. She then called out to Mils. "Hey, Andrew, I have an idea. I think I got it, but you got to be quick."

"What do you want me to do?" he responded.

"I'm putting on my pressure suit. I'll let you know when it's time."

Ripley put on her pressure suit, zipping it up quickly and sealing all the Velcro fasteners before slowly maneuvering herself into the nearest helmet with harness. She heard it pressurize around her and come to life on the inside. She regulated her breathing and took the grappling gun used mainly for setting up cables for tethering in an emergency situation, feeling that it was the best bet for wounding the beast. She placed a spare hook into the gun itself with a firm grip.

Ripley's plan required getting Mils to use the console to get the alien out of its hideout, using pressure valves around it, then Ripley would open the shuttle's hatch to flush the alien out. The problem was, Mils would not have a suit but Ripley had instructed him that once the alien was out, he would have to run to the nearest cryo-tube and close it before Ripley could decompress the ship. He would only have a few seconds or the alien would catch him. Once the alien was disposed of, she would re-pressurize the ship and Mils could get out.

"Alright, Andrew, get the nearest cryotube open, and then I need you at the main console. On my signal, I want you to vent whichever trace gases will repel that bastard from its hiding spot. You're only gonna have a few seconds to get in it and seal yourself inside before the whole shuttle depressurizes," Ripley ordered calmly.

"That thing's gonna be on us like stink on shit the whole time we're doing this," Andrew pointed out.

"Either we both survive or that thing does. It's not gonna compromise so we can't," Ripley countered, and Andrew silently nodded. Ripley slowly opened the closet and stepped out, carefully moving over to the hatch console while Mils walked cautiously to the main console, and on the way he opened the cryo-tube. The alien remained inside its hideout, ostensibly oblivious to the two humans' activities. They both knew it was watching them for the slightest opportunity to kill them both.

Ash had described the creature as being comparably hostile to humans as human intelligence was comparable to that of a worm. If there was any time or opportunity to prove that loyal Company machine wrong, it was here and now. Otherwise Ash would have been proven right. If the two of them had no chance against the alien here, not a single life form on Earth would survive if it fell into the clutches of Weyland-Yutani.

It was down to Ripley and Mils - they either had to destroy it here and now, or die trying their damnedest.

"Come on! Come on!" Ripley sat and fastened the seatbelts on her bulky frame, when out of nowhere, without realizing it she had started to sing in a whisper. "You...are...my lucky... star... you are my... lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky..."

"Oh come on!... you are my lucky star..." Mils joined in, opening the console to reveal a series of buttons labeled with chemical notations, and then he began pressing various buttons activating puffs of hot chemical steam. When he pressed the third one, hot steam made contact with the alien's body. It screeched in pain and quickly struggled to get out of the cramped space. It flailed its arms in pain and anger, eventually flopping onto the ground with an unnerving metallic squeal.

"You are my lucky star, you are my lucky star!" Ripley exclaimed as her voice shook at being so close to the beast. Mils, in the meantime, prepared himself for a quick sprint to the cryotube, having set the controls for a quick close and seal the moment he laid down. He would have very little room to get a running start, maybe two or three steps, then he'd have to jump at it.

"You are... my…lucky... star..." Ripley sang, facing away from the creature, preparing the door controls, and the alien slowly rose to its feet, unable to stretch to its full height in the cramped confines of the _Narcissus_, and began to explore its surroundings. Ripley continued singing, slowly turning her head around to see the alien leaning its eyeless head over her at point blank range, its mouth open wide, gleaming metallic incisors and canines parted and dripping jellied saliva, the attack tongue closed but ready to piston brutally through her helmet and cranium...

"_GET AWAY FROM HER YOU SONOVABITCH!_" Mils roared at the creature, trying to lure it away from Ripley, and then he ran for the cryotube, triggering its closing sequence, but the alien turned quickly on him. The man barely made it to the cryotube and the lid closed, but not as quickly as he wanted, the alien stabbed him in the shoulder with its tail spike before the lid sealed.

"Noooo!" Ripley screamed, slamming her gloved fist down onto a small red button labeled EMERGENCY OPEN. The hatch opened with a hiss and the atmosphere was expelled along with the creature into the darkness

The alien was surprisingly quick - it used its claws, six on each hand, to cling to the door frame, and there it hung, its drooling mouth still open wide, as though it might still have time to get to her, to bite through her head and end the life in her body. Ripley fired the grappling gun, and the hook pierced the creature's body, sending it and gouts of its blood flying out into the cold of space, screeching. The cable tightened and ripped the gun from Ripley's hands, but at the last second the outer hatch closed on the gun's muzzle, leaving the alien tethered to the shuttle. She hurried to the viewport to see the alien use its bloodied tail to pull itself into one of the shuttle's main thrusters, where it curled inside.

The creature's survival instinct surprised Ripley yet again - it refused to die even though it was mortally wounded and exposed to the hard, unforgiving vacuum of space. Now she understood the company's interest in the creature. Ash had almost been correct in calling it perfect.

Ripley turned back to the console, specifically towards the buttons next to a panel that read THRUSTER IGNITION. By pressing those buttons the engine was primed, and the four main thrusters would expel a stream of superheated plasma directly at the alien. Ripley was about to push the button, when suddenly a second hand appeared over her, the hand of a fairly handsome officer to whom she was recently attracted. He leaned over, struggling against the lack of atmosphere, to place his cheek against the faceplate of her helmet. If he had had time to don a pressure suit of his own it would have been a simple matter of touching their faceplates together and speaking normally. As it was, Ripley wondered how he was able to say what he was trying to with the remaining breath in his lungs. She could barely hear him even then.

"We'll do this together… For Kane, and Brett, Dallas, Parker and Lambert" Mils told her; then, they pressed their hands against the igniter button.

The engines came to life, and a white hot jet blew the alien away, flying helplessly into the darkness of space. It did not get very far, as the hot plasma exhaust combined with the absolute lack of atmospheric pressure caused the creature to explode. Chitin and globules of molecular acid formed a cloud that soon dispersed into the infinite. Ripley stared out the now-sealed hatch viewport, not daring to believe what her eyes had told her, expecting some other trick of the alien to permit it to reconstitute and propel itself back inside the shuttle to kill them finally. None was forthcoming, and exhaustion and shock finally began to take their toll on her when her pressure suited body began to slide downwards toward the deck.

For a long moment she sat there on the deck, unmoving as the atmosphere in the shuttle slowly restored itself from reservoirs inside the hull, and her shock and numbness finally gave way to relief as the helmet sensors finally registered complete pressurization. She then unsealed and removed her helmet, then began to unseal and unfasten the remainder of her pressure suit. Her relief soon was replaced by concern, as in a moment she froze as she saw Andrew's limp form laying against the console.

"Andrew? No! No! No!" Ripley said, bending over to check on her friend. "Andrew? Andrew?" Ripley repeated urgently as she took him by the shoulders and shook him gently. At length he turned his pale face to her and smiled.

"We made it," was his only response.

"Yes, it's over…" she breathed, nodding enthusiastically, "it's finally over."

"Good... now we can sleep... though patching this hole in my shoulder probably should come first on the list," he rasped weakly, indicating the bloody gap where the alien's tail had impaled him.

"Yeah, it should, you stupid hero..."

"Hey, we did this together, remember?" Mils replied, smiling at the woman of his dreams. She laughed and kissed him tenderly, happy they could rest now.

….

Ripley took care of Mils' wound the best she could, knowing that once they got back home a doctor could properly heal it.

"Okay, there we go. Good for now," Ripley said after she was done wrapping his shoulder in a bandage.

"Nice work, Doctor Ripley!" Mils said with a grunt. "And what happens now, Captain Ripley?"

"I'm not the Captain, Mils… Just a warrant officer eager to get home," she responded, sighed and then continued. "I guess I need to record a report."

….

A few minutes later, after plotting a course on the NAV computer, Ripley sat at one of the consoles, petting Jones on her lap as she recorded the debriefing.

"Final report of the commercial starship _Nostromo._ Third officer reporting. The other members of the crew: Kane, Lambert, Parker, Brett..." she paused, doubting if she should include the next, but she continued "ASH, and Captain Dallas are dead. Only I and officer Mils have survived. Cargo and ship destroyed. We should reach the frontier in about six weeks… with a little luck the network will pick us up. This is Ripley, survivor of the _Nostromo_ signing off." Ripley pressed a button, stopping the recording; she smirked at Jones' now sleeping form.

She placed the cat inside her cryo-tube and returned to the terminal. After that, she pressed the recorder button again and continued, this time the message was a personal one, for her daughter Amanda.

"Added report, personal message for my daughter Amanda. Hi Amanda. I'm recording this for you, my sweetheart and I hope you hear it one day. My ship got into trouble...there was an accident, sweetheart. We found an alien creature, it was very dangerous. It killed nearly my whole crew, and the only way we could stop it was to destroy the ship. I'm okay, or rather… _we're_ okay. You remember Jonesy? He's a big cat now, he's gotten fat from all the fish I've been feeding him. And another member of the crew made it, Mils. He's here with me now; we're stuck on a lifeboat. Listen, I told you we had to destroy the _Nostromo_, we just couldn't take a risk and bring that thing home with us, I needed to protect you. Don't you worry, though, don't worry about me. I've got Mils and Jonesy here watching my back, and I'm sure I'll see you very soon. I love you sweetheart," Ripley finished, but before she turned the recorder off, Mils walked up from behind.

"Oh... sorry Andrew, I didn't see you there... I was recording a message for my daughter. You remember me talking about her... Amanda?"

"Yeah I remember you talking about her over breakfast. I think you need some sleep though. Our course is all set, and we should reach the frontier within a few weeks. I'll get in my pod soon enough, but I want to make a message myself."

"Just go ahead and add on to mine... I'm sure we won't need them though. Anyway don't wait up Andrew... you've still gotta tuck me in," Ripley coyly said as there was shuffling heard.

"Okay… let's see," Mils started as a ruffling of papers was heard. "David Andrew Mils... born April 1st, 2110.. Great, an April fools baby," he groused. "Anyway, uh ... you probably don't know who I am. Strictly speaking, I'm your dad. Well, there it is. Look, I know things are probably... difficult… with not knowing who your father was and all that... when I get back I'm going to, um, start to be more of a father to you... I promise… anyway David… I'll see ya then, kid..." Mils finished, and he stopped the recording.

He approached Ripley preparing to lie down in her cryo-pod, looking like an angel.

"Well, I guess it's time to go to bed for us... sweet dreams Jonesy, and you Ellen Ripley... I'll see you in a few hours." Mils says bending down and kissing Ripley on the lips tenderly, Ripley returned the kiss. They both know that though six weeks' time would have gone by, it usually felt like a short period of time.

"Looking forward to it Andrew, sweet dreams... I'll see you soon," Ripley replied sweetly as Mils walked away to his cryotube, laid down and only then, the lids closed and all three survivors fell into a deep sleep, perfectly sealed in time inside their chambers.

They had been through something worse than hell and lived to tell the tale. They had always been lonely souls but now they have each other - they're no longer alone.

**The End...of the Beginning.**


	13. Author Update 2

Hello everyone EAP404 here with the old reliable, post story author update. In this update I'm going to be talking about not only _Alien: Not Alone_, but also answer some Q&A, and talk about future stories.

Firstly, I want to give a **HUGE** thank you to _**AlphaLima1980**_ and _**DarthTenebrus**_, for not only being two of my biggest supporters, but also for beta/gamma reading the fic. They made the story not only more fine tuned, but also more fun to read, by adding their own little touches here and there. I must admit I was nervous having two readers, but it worked out for the best, as I feel _Alien: Not Alone_, came out looking crisp, and well defined. Please! Go over to their pages and take a look at their fics! They are two incredibly talented writers, and need to be given equal credit for this fic's success.

Secondly, I wanna say thank you to everyone who has taken time out of their day, and given the story a view, favorite or review. It means to me that all of you have supported my stories.

Now onto some Q&A I've gotten, I'll try to be brief this time around.

Why is this one shorter than the other two?

There were several reasons why this fic was a little shorter than the other two. Firstly, with both _Aliens _and _Alien: Isolation_ I expanded the universe a little bit, adding additional scenes, and prologues. With Alien Isolation in particular, I was watching 8-10 hour walkthroughs, which naturally produce more content than a two hour movie. I added what I could with _Alien_, but felt that the confines of the fic should be within the events of the movie, although I compromised adding some additional content via Alien Isolation's Crew Expendable DLC.

Why'd you pick Sam Elliott to play Andrew Mils?

Alright, there were several reasons I wanted Sam Elliott to play Andrew Mils. The primary reason was that I felt he could play a more laid back character, one that he had played before and since. Two, it would be when Elliott was still a rising star, so I felt Alien would have been like a big break for him. Now onto what he'd look like, this would be a still young Sam Elliott (35 in 1979), so his hair would be brown still and he'd have no mustache. Also, his voice wouldn't be as gravelly as it is now, also if people must know, he'd have a slight country accent, which probably would make him fit into the _Nostromo_ crew perfectly. If you want a more detailed look at what he would like in _Alien_, watch the horror movie _Frogs_, it stars him as the protagonist.

Why was the character, Helwig created? Since he doesn't stick around for the long run?

If you recall ASH was the latest addition to the _Nostromo_ according to Dallas, so I thought to add some additional information to that, and I think it was added in by one of my two readers that Ripley thought that maybe Helwig was replaced, because he wouldn't go through with Protocol 937. That's the primary reason he was created, plus he may play a more extended role in future fics.

Why was Mils spared by the Alien?

So for those who have played _Alien Isolation, _there is a DLC called Crew Expendable, it takes place during _Alien_, specifically when the crew plan to trap the creature in the airlock. Well the ending (if you survive) is that the airlock fails to close, and then the alien charges through you and knocks you out, that's where Ash will eventually wake you up, and your character will pass out. So if Mils was sent down first, and the whole experience is mirroring the DLC, than to me it made sense for Mils to be spared as the alien was more focused on getting out of dodge, than grabbing him.

Why was the romance heavier in this story than the previous two?

Two reasons, one I wanted the romance to be a little more heavy, because I felt that proxemics (the study of space) playing a big factor in two people liking each other, I felt that it was more likely that they would have feelings for each other especially since they would have been working with each other for a few years by the time the "DISTRESS SIGNAL" is received by MUTHUR. Two, I felt that if it just made sense, since they would be surviving in the end, that they develop some sort of relationship.

What's next for the franchise, since you've brought things full circle with Alien?

Now on to the big question in the room, what is next? Okay, so outside of the fanfic, a lot has been going on. I don't know exactly how it is in other countries, but for us here in the United States it is a little crazy still, a lot of states including mine are still under a stay-at-home order, which means different things for me, as my job has been deemed an essential one, so I've been working a lot and until this whole COVID 19 thing goes away, I'll probably continue to work a lot. Secondly, as I have mentioned before I'm literally days away from graduating, although it's not so much a ceremony as a PDF of a diploma…..anyway, I probably won't be starting a new fic for awhile, but when I do, expect a teaser or two to pop up on this fic's page.

Anyway for now, this is see ya later, and once again thank you for all of your support.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and stay strong, we'll get through this together

Lots of love EAP404


End file.
